Join Me at Next Chapter Books and Art Store in New Bern, North Carolina. I will be teaching a class on Fast Drafting Your Novel: The Process of Layering Your Writing.
The art or technique of layering your story is nothing new and neither is fast drafting. There are several versions of both premises. There is even a version of layering that helps with self-editing. So how is my version unique and why should you attend my presentation at Next Chapter Books and Art Store Saturday, June 17th, 3 pm? https://thenextchapternc.com/home/whats-happening/
In trying to find the magic trick that would help me write faster and create more books I have taken several classes, read many books and watched an abundance of videos on writing techniques. Most of them were geared towards plotters. I cringe at the thought of plotting. I have tried to outline and plan my stories. If my brain doesn’t freeze and I actually manage to plan out an outline, I don’t stick to it. It’s a waste of time. Time I could be using to write more books. BUT planning your books helps with the writing process. How can I plan my stories and still be a pantser (or as some people prefer, a discovery writer).
Many of you have heard the story of my first NaNoWriMo. I knew I needed to do something different in order to write fifty-thousand words in a month. My friends Kate Parker and Hannah Meredith gave me a couple of ideas for planning my novel. Kate had a large whiteboard in her house that she used to write plot ideas and when she used the idea, she would check it off. Hannah suggested I do something similar using sticky notes. Author Sarra Cannon uses colorful sticky notes and note cards to plan her books, assigning different colors to each character. While the sticky notes worked well for NaNoWriMo but they aren’t convenient if you don’t write in an office.
I developed my version of fast drafting when I realized I was overwriting and had to cut a lot of my story to make the novel read better. The editing was difficult. The process was even more time-consuming than the original writing. I wanted to be able to write at least two books a year with time to write other projects. I began playing around with different writing styles with different degrees of preparation and success.
Everyone writes differently. Finding your own unique style of prewriting and planning is as important as finding your own writing style. The layering plays a huge role in my fast drafting. While writing faster happens organically with practice, with layering the writing is cleaner and thus getting to the finished product is quicker. If you are interested in learning more, join me and Michelle Flye at The Next Chapter Books and Art Store Saturday, June 17th, 3 pm until 5 pm. You must preregister.
How many of you spend more time cutting stuff from your stories or rewriting them? Wouldn’t you like to find a method that allows you to have more control over your story?
June 17 3 p.m. Sherri Hollister workshop “Fast Drafting Your Novel”. Cost $20. Pre-registration required.
Email Michelle Flye to sign up at mgflye@yahoo.com.
Bio: A lifelong freelancer, Phil Bowie earned his chops selling 300 articles and short stories to magazines. One article, about deaf Hollywood stunt woman Kitty O’neal, came out in The Saturday Evening Post and was reprinted in Reader’s Digest, reaching 26 million readers in 23 languages. Several of his short stories have won awards, including a first-place contest winner, “The Cat From Hell,” a yarn begun by Stephen King.
Phil began writing novels in the 2,000s. His debut, GUNS, about the world black-market weapons trade, earned Honorable Mention at the London Book Festival among 400 entries, and was endorsed by Lee Child, number one NY Times international best-selling author of the Jack Reacher series. (One hundred million copies sold to date.) Three more novels in Phil’s suspense series have followed: Diamondback, about a lost Great Smokies Cherokee gold mine, KLLRS, featuring a deadly outlaw motorcycle gang, and Deathsman, set against the illegal synthetic drugs trade.
Phil also has two stand-alone thrillers: Killing Ground, about African elephant poaching, and Dawn Light, starring a yacht delivery captain and his rebellious teenage mentee aboard a boat carrying a lethal secret in her belly.
Phil has been a pilot with his own Cessna, a Coast Guard-licensed boat captain, a draftsman, co-owner of a graphics business, a fiddler, an inventor, and a motorcycle rider. He lives with his partner, Naomi, and their cat, McKenzie, in a cottage he restored on a shore of the Neuse River.
Sherri: Welcome Phil, it’s great to have you on my virtual café. I wish it was a real place we could hang out and have a drink, talk books and writing but maybe someday that will happen. It sounds like you have had a fun and interesting life so far and I’m excited to learn more. In your bio you said you were a lifelong freelancer; did you make your living as a writer? How did you get started writing? Have you always written? Was there a point in your life when you said, this is what I’m going to do or did you just kind of fall into it?
Phil: Thanks for having me, Sherri. I like your café atmosphere.
It’s been a somewhat checkered life, some would say, but yes, fun and most interesting. I went to a rural high school in the Berkshire village of Williamsburg, Massachusetts. There were only 22 in my class, so we got spoiled. My English teacher, Lulu Smith, I guess saw a spark in me and offered lots of encouragement. My mother, Edith, an excellent newspaper reporter who once interviewed Eleanor Roosevelt, instilled in me the power and beauty of the language. At Clemson, I was fortunate to have a tough creative writing professor we called Flunking Felder, who got my first short story published in the college literary magazine, and I’ve been writing on and off since, most often as a sideline to a variety of bills-paying jobs.
Sherri: In your article about Kitty O’Neil, did you get to interview her? What is your process for writing articles and how does that differ from writing novels?
Phil: I’d long been interested in the World Land Speed Record, so in the late seventies, when I heard of an upcoming record attempt at Bonneville in a three-wheeled rocket vehicle, I raided my meager savings, grabbed my photo gear, and, on pure speculation, drove a borrowed tin-can Fiat 2,400 miles to cover it. I was the only journalist there, because historically most attempts had failed, and nobody else was going to cover it until it looked like a record might actually be broken as the hydrogen peroxide-powered rocket car built up speed in ever-faster trial runs over several days. Kitty was going for the female record and stunt man Hall Needham (who wrote the Smokey and the Bandit script), a buddy of actor Burt Reynolds, was driving for the male record.
Although she was deaf, Kitty had already been an Olympic diver and a motorcycle racer and had set several records like water skiing at 104 miles per hour. She’d stunted as Wonder Woman and in several other movies. She was part Cherokee, beautiful, and fearless, the first woman admitted into the Hollywood Stunts Unlimited organization. I interviewed and photographed her at length and wrote a piece for the Post, which was reprinted in Reader’s Digest. I like to think I gave her career a modest boost. No record was set during that attempt for technical reasons, but she did later set the female record at five hundred and twelve miles an hour on a dry lakebed in Oregon. They eventually did a movie about her called Silent Victory. She’s gone now, but it’s no coincidence that the love interest in my suspense series is beautiful, part Cherokee, and named Kitty.
All riveting fiction and non-fiction is based on conflict, and the more intense the conflict, the more interesting the story, real or imagined, will be, so the basic approach for either articles or stories has always been similar for me. I mostly look for subjects with an unusual aspect of adventure or danger or human endeavor against odds. In articles, I’ve covered everything from angling for blue marlin in the Gulf Stream, to a jet-powered show truck called Shockwave (which I took a 200 mph ride in at Cherry Point) to bottlenose porpoise communication research, to the last builder of wooden Chesapeake Bay sailing Skipjacks, to Dolly Parton and her Dollywood, to how to pilot a plane for skydiving. Short stories have varied widely in a variety of magazines, and a while back I put out a collection of 17 of them called Dagger and other tales.
Sherri: Your debut novel, GUNS, was endorsed by Lee Child? Now that’s impressive. Did you get the opportunity to meet Mr. Child? Do you feel his endorsement has helped your sales? How can an author set themselves up for such an endorsement or other opportunities that would aid in their marketing?
Phil: Yes, the Lee Child endorsement was a nice boost. He’d been an idol of mine, so I sent the raw manuscript to him through his agent. Lee read it, liked it, and got back to me. On their dime, my then-publisher, Medallion, sent me to the Sleuthfest conference in Fort Lauderdale to meet him. He was the guest of honor and keynote speaker for the 500 attendees. Like his protagonist, Jack Reacher, Lee is a big guy, six-five. He came up to me and shook my hand, which made my year. That night, we sat out by the Hilton pool talking about life and writing into the small hours.
I’d advise any budding writer to try for best-seller author endorsements through their publishers or literary agents. Nothing to lose by trying. I’ve garnered endorsements from best-sellers Ridley Pearson and Stephen Coonts (Flight of the Intruder) using the same approach. The top gun authors I’ve met at conferences like Killer Nashville and Bouchercon in Baltimore have been gracious and friendly. At that same Sleuthfest, for example, I had breakfast with the prolific and enchanting best-seller Heather Graham and her pleasant daughter.
Sherri: Do you read the reviews of your books, if so, do you learn from them, or do they affect your attitude? As creatives, it’s often difficult to separate ourselves from our work. On days I feel objective I can read my reviews and say, okay, I need to work on this, or I can see why they said that and it’s fine, it’s how I do things, but there are other days when they can be a boost or a devastation depending on the review.
Phil: Reviews from respected sources like Publishers Weekly, newspapers, magazines, and some of the online bloggers and critics are well worth soliciting, and they’ve certainly helped me by giving me a boost and occasionally by stinging me. A Publishers Weekly review of GUNS, for example, did both. While praising the book warmly overall, the reviewer berated me for including pages of lyrical material that did not advance the plot, so I hung my head and revised an updated version of the novel to tighten it up.
You’re always going to hear from those few who roam the Net putting everything and everybody down while never accomplishing much of anything themselves, so you can’t ever let those people get you down. You’re less likely to hear from those readers who’ve liked your work (except through respectable royalty figures), though it’s always nice to get an email or a website note from somebody who does like your stuff. I admit to keeping a file of those and it’s thick enough to be of some comfort on a dark winter night when doubts assail.
I’ve always just tried to concentrate on researching and writing the absolute best I can, and that seems to have paid off okay over the years.
Sherri: From some of your reviews one of the comments was your political bias showing in your stories, especially GUNS. We as writers often have a difficult time taking our own voice out of the story and letting the characters’ point of view shine. Do your characters represent or echo your own voice, or do they vary in their opinions? When choosing the characters, themes and topics for your novels, how much of real life enters into your work? What influences or inspires your stories?
Phil: You’re right that we should be invisible to readers. The story is always paramount, and the trick is to immerse readers in it thoroughly while staying behind the scenes, much like a movie director.
I suppose some of my political feelings have bled into my fiction at times, but it’s never a good idea to let that happen, because no matter what your views are, you’re going to make enemies.
I do firmly believe it’s important to write what you know, thus much of my work is themed on some conflict or other I’ve been somehow involved in or am at least familiar with, and I’ve drawn on my own sometimes crazy experiences—piloting, parachuting, riding motorcycles, and so on—to lend realism to plots and characters. The protagonist in my suspense series and in one of my stand-alone novels is a pilot, for example. An elderly couple in the series is based largely on my maternal stonemason grandfather (one of my enduring idols) and his good wife, and readers seem to especially like the couple. Other characters in any novel or short story may begin as ethereal figures, but they soon become as real to me as anybody I’ve known, and they can only perform on my stage as who and what I’ve molded them to be.
I also use story settings that I’ve either spent a lot of time in, like the Great Smokies, or that I’ve researched extensively enough to give me confidence, as in the novel about African elephant poaching.
Sherri: When you are writing, do you plan or plot your books ahead of time or do you just sit down and write? What is the most difficult part of writing and how do you overcome it? Where do your ideas come from?
Phil: Each short story or novel begins with a theme that I think has enough inherent conflict to build an engaging story on. GUNS, for example, is about the black-market trade in weapons. I had a friend who’d spent a career in naval intelligence, and he helped fill me in on that.
For a novel, I’ll spend weeks just digging and jotting the occasional plot idea. Copies of all my research materials go into a dedicated file box for easy reference. I’ll sketch out a rough plot longhand on a legal pad (old habit), and then launch into the story on the computer with some intense and vivid scene meant mostly to hook the reader. Then I’ll just forge on, letting my characters guide me. If I get stuck along the way, I’ll often take a long walk, which seems to break up the logjam. I rewrite and revise a lot as I go.
This is a tough, solitary business, as I’m sure you know. Weeks and months of sitting behind the screen trying to fill those blank pages with a hundred-thousand-word story that will engage and reach out and touch a reader. It’s at once a long, long slog and a wonderous and rewarding experience. I’m hopelessly hooked on it.
Sherri: I saw your publisher was listed as Bowker. Are you independently published or is this a small publishing company? What has publishing been like from the first book to the most recent? How have things changed? What do you wish you’d known in the beginning?
Phil: That’s an Amazon glitch I need to fix. Bowker was only the provider of that book’s bar code.
Over the years, much of my article and short story writing has been on pure speculation. I’d write something and then try to sell it. Early on, my work was rejected a lot, but accepted and paid for just enough to keep me plowing onward while learning and honing the craft. That led to working on assignment for several magazines at much better pay and without the marketing hassle.
If I had it to do over, I think I’d have a lot more confidence in myself and would be more aggressive.
Writing has changed in many ways since I began decades ago. I once had to research laboriously through libraries, write on a typewriter, and take photos on several kinds of expensive film with a whole heavy bag full of gear, never knowing what exactly I had until the transparencies came back from the lab. It’s so much easier now to research, write, edit, and correspond on a computer, and my digital Canon camera is amazing.
The advent of the Net, of course, has changed the whole business profoundly. Back in the day, editors filtered submissions, only buying and publishing those books they figured would earn their way. Now millions of books get published on Amazon, and it’s easy for your work to get buried in that constant avalanche. A whole generation of readers expect to get Kindle books dirt cheap or even free. Many out there are lost in Smartphoneland and don’t read books at all.
I sold my first three novels to Medallion Press under traditional advance/royalty contracts. They treated me well, but lack of distribution became an issue, so I finally asked for all rights back, added a fourth novel to the series, and self-published as Proud Eagle Publishing, which comprises me, my best friend, editor, incisive critic, and life companion, Naomi (who is also part Cherokee) and our cat, McKenzie. I write and edit, rewrite, create my own covers, put everything up on Amazon myself, promote myself, and sell through a number of indy stores I’ve set up. The six novels have sold more than 150,000 copies to date in print and Kindle, so people seem to like them.
As long as they do, I’ll keep on writing.
Sherri: Phil, it’s been a pleasure having you at Creekside Café. If you all enjoyed our interview you can learn more about Phil from his links below, order his books or come out to our Book Festival at the New Bern Farmers Market, Sunday, November 20th from 1 to 4 pm and meet him there. Remember, books make great holiday gifts, and they can even help you survive them. We hope to see you there.
Natalie Singletary is a local author from eastern North Carolina. Aside from writing, she also enjoys multiple other art forms, including stitch work, mixed media, and making handmade and printed journals. She has a love for dance and theatre, always looking for a reason to perform with the silent jukebox in her head. She is published in Down in the Dirt magazine and Scarlet Leaf Review as well as several self-published books in both print and eBook. Natalie has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing from Full Sail University.
Sherri: Welcome Natalie to my virtual café. If I ever win the lottery, I’ll open a coffee shop on the river where we can sip drinks and talk about books and writing, but until then, I can only dream. As a kid my friend and I played a game while walking down country roads, she’d say something that made me think of a song and I’d start singing and then I’d say something, and she’d start singing. We sang everywhere we went. We even put on shows for our neighbors. You mentioned in your bio the jukebox in your head, do you have a soundtrack for your life? How about for your books?
Natalie: Thank you for having me, and I hope that I can help you in some way move closer to your dream of owning your coffee shop. Its funny that you mention a soundtrack of my life. I actually used to write down my soundtrack every couple of months. Now I have access to streaming services to make playlists. I prefer independent artists and music and have recently been caught up in a band called Nightshift.
I do have a playlist for the Diamond Trilogy posted on my Spotify. I believe there’s a link to it on my website. The book itself started out as a jukebox musical and I replaced the songs with poetry and small blurbs. The chapter titles in the book are actually the titles of the original jukebox songs.
Sherri: Do you make a living with your art? I am always envious of anyone who can do something they love and support themselves. I’m still hopeful that my writing will be part of my retirement plan.
Natalie: I currently do not make a living on my art, but it is a goal within the next 6 months to be a full time author and business owner.
Sherri: I was looking at your website and I saw your essay on vulnerability. Sharing your truth has to be one of the most difficult things you will have to do other than survive. When I see someone like you stand up and take charge of their lives after dealing with trauma, I am inspired. Your daily courage to face each day gives hope to others who are struggling with similar stories. Is the theme of your work about your survival and hope?
Natalie: It is. Even The Diamond Trilogy was a coping mechanism, as well as Dirty Laundry. I wanted to get rid of The Diamond Trilogy, burn the physical copies and delete the typed version, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it, and I didn’t know why. Then, within two weeks, five people in my circle(s) passed away. The Trilogy hits on a good number of hard subjects, including suicide and overdoses, and I knew that it could be a segway to help others to find help.
Sherri: As chairperson of the Pamlico Writers’ Group, one of the things I tell new members is that sharing our work is like standing in the Walmart parking lot naked, yelling “Look at me!” It’s not easy to share our work with others. Especially as a self-published author we have to promote ourselves. What is the most difficult thing for you about self-promotion?
Natalie: Talking about myself, lol. Thankfully, my sister loves talking about me and that helps. She’s my biggest cheerleader, for sure. I’ve been working on getting better with letting people and socials know that I do have art out there and that it is available to be purchased.
Sherri: Your covers are interesting and unique; do you create your own covers? I do my own covers and often have to rethink my ideas to match my genres. Do you have any suggestions for creating eye- catching covers?
Natalie: I appreciate you. I did create them, though Remnants is the first one I drew by hand and put on a cover. The others I actually used Canva.com for most of my covers, outside of The Diamond Trilogy. A good friend of mine took a photo for the Trilogy in my old apartment.
Canva.com is a free service that has plenty of resources to create great backgrounds, invites, and covers. I came across it during my time at Full Sail and I absolutely love it! I would definitely recommend it! they have templates or you can start from scratch, and while they do have elements that you can pay for, there is plenty to use that is free.
Sherri: What was the hardest thing you faced when you first published your books? What would you tell a new writer preparing to publish for the first time?
Natalie: I initially started with a vanity press, and quickly discovered that I didn’t go about it the correct way and ended up canceling my contract. Vanity presses aren’t evil by any means. Many of them are a great investment, as they offer a good number of services that take a lot off of the authors’ plates, including editing and advertising. For myself, I wasn’t the best with my finances at the time, and decided to go about it solo. It was a lot more work, but I didn’t mind, as I did like having control over the editing and the story.
Sherri: What are you working on now?
Natalie: I’m currently working on my first novel, Gemini, the first in a three book series. It is a fantasy about two sisters who were cursed by their parents to be slaves to the sun and the moon. I also just finished up a writing Inktober, a new dual poetry/journal that will be available at the beginning of 2023.
Sherri: If you enjoyed this interview, you can meet Natalie at the New Bern Farmers Market, Sunday, November 20 th at our upcoming Book Festival.
Natalie: Thank you so much for having me, Ms. Sherri!
The Diamond Trilogy – https://www.amazon.com/Diamond-Trilogy-Dramatic- Mini/dp/B0B3JD37DT/ref=sr_1_3?crid=3STJGKOLGZXT2&keywords=Natalie+Singletar y&qid=1667752443&sprefix=natalie+singletary%2Caps%2C156&sr=8-3
Bio: Nicole Kerr is an award-winning health and wellness expert. For the past 30 years, Nicole has worked in all sectors of society, including in government (the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), non-profit (American Cancer Society), military (United States Air Force Medical Operations), academia (University of Hawaii), healthcare institutions/hospitals (Adventist Health Castle and Queens Medical Center), corporate settings (Sea Ties, LLC), and private consultation. Nicole’s warm, engaging presentations have earned her a place in front of national and international audiences. Throughout her career, she has focused on supporting people from every walk of life to make realistic, meaningful, happy choices for lifelong health and well-being. She has appeared on CNN, PBS, CBS, ABC, the Food Channel, and a host of other TV and radio shows to share her unique perspective on wellness, lifestyle, and nutrition. As a 19-year-old cadet at the US Air Force Academy, Nicole went through a transformative NDE. Her memory of the crash came back 20 years later, and it has taken Nicole almost another two decades to align her soul, spirit, mind, and body, proving healing is certainly a non-linear process. Her pursuit of improving her own health led her to inspire others to reach the overlooked domains of emotional, energetic, and spiritual well-being.
Sherri: It is awesome to welcome Nicole Kerr to my virtual café. Nicole, I’ve been reading information about you and your book, and I have to say you represent what I believe about writing. For me, writing was an outlet for a broken heart and later a way of dealing with trauma. I chose fiction but you have chosen to share your journey.
Nicole: Hi Sherri, delighted to be with you and thank you for the compliment! Mine is non-fiction and I chose to share it (mind you it took 13 years to write and publish) because I felt it was the best vehicle to share the clear message I was given by Spirit of, “Do not be afraid of death,” out into the world. In the process I realized it was a way of healing for me.
Sherri: What was the most difficult thing about the writing and especially the publishing process when you decided to turn your journal into a book?
Nicole: I came from a science background and had written for peer-reviewed scientific publications which is a completely different style/way of writing. I had to learn how to write from my heart, that took hundreds of writing prompts and working with a writing coach. Regarding publishing, I decided to self-publish so I could own the rights to my book and release it when I wanted. I found the right group (by word of mouth) and so pleased with their help. I still had to go through yet another round of editing to take the book from good to great.
Sherri: Why do you think we are so afraid of death? I have had a lot of death in my life and while I’m not ready to die, I can’t say I’m truly afraid to die. I’m more afraid of being in pain or missing out on things. I’m also afraid of losing my mom, she’s my last parent. So, what is it about death that is so terrifying for most people?
Nicole: I feel it is the great unknown. In almost every book written death is cloaked in a veil of gloom and doom. Death has a cloud of depression and negativity around it throughout our culture and society. Also given certain religious beliefs about death (going to “hell”), etc. imprinted at a very young age at some unconscious level you may still believe that.
Sherri: How well has this book been received? What are people saying about your book?
Nicole: I am overwhelmed at the heartfelt comments I have received. I am in so much gratitude that my book is having the effect I intended. It went to #1 new best NDE book and is in the top 100 of all NDE books. I have sold over 500 copies in 2 months and am officially a best-selling author.
“No wonder it took the author 13 years to write this book, because she managed to condense three different things into one very readable combination…the story of her NDE (near-death experience); a dramatically candid confession that reads like a personal diary; and an overview of trauma.”
“As a cardiologist who watches people die quickly and slowly on a daily basis, I have never felt so connected to the patient experience and whole-heartedly have this author to thank for this. As she brings us through her journey, she teaches us the lessons that she needed to learn and explains why they were/still are important today. She has brought me closer to patients but also closer to God, a seemingly impossible task, she does it all.”
Sherri: What is the goal of your book? What do you hope the reader feels when they finish reading it?
Nicole: May this book help you with your fears about death. May this book also support you through the loss of loved ones. Above all may my book inspire you to live fully, truly loving yourself unconditionally! I hope my words can in some small way help you find inside yourself what you have always been seeking.
Sherri: Do you have any plans to write anything else?
Nicole: I had previously co-written a book on nutrition, as I am a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist, called Eating the Rainbow without Lies, Hype or Calculus (revised 2005). In You Are Deathless I am extremely vulnerable and honest. I am not sure of next steps just enjoying the present and so grateful I got this baby birthed and out in the world. Enjoying doing podcasts at the moment as well!
Sherri: Do you have any advice for those who wish to share their experiences?
Nicole: Be authentic. Be persistent. Join a writing group if you need support. If you have a limited income spend the money on editing. Get to the root of the issue if you are procrastinating. Love yourself no matter what happens!
Sherri: If you enjoyed this interview with Nicole Kerr be sure to visit her at the New Bern Farmers Market, Sunday, November 20th, 2022, 1 to 4 pm, for our Authors’ Event. If you are not able to attend in person, you can purchase Nicole’s book through the above vendors.
You Are Deathless
If death is an end, then I know for certain there is nothing final about it.
When Nicole Kerr hit the ground, she thought: I am going to die, yet death is not supposed to happen this way. I am just 19 years old. I still have things to do, places to go, deadlines to meet, so I cannot be dead. I don’t have time to be dead. Still, I think I am. This must be death. Rays of brilliant white light flood me from all sides. Streams of light cocoon me, wrapping every part of my being in a chrysalis of soothing waves. Instead of the pain of impact, I feel rocked and held. This is bliss. No fear.
Editorial Reviews
Review
“You are Deathless reaches far beyond those who have had NDEs to people who are having near-life experiences. Guilt, shame, what ifs, shoulds, and traumas all leave us barely living and disconnected to Source. Nicole creates lessons in her chapters that leave readers smoothly transitioning between her present voice, her memory of how her accident unfolded, and the invitations of each subsequent trauma that allowed her to develop another resource for survival. Her courageous disconnection from situations and people who caused repetitive emotional pain, her development of gratitude and peace that continues to grow, and her allowing of healing (instead of forcing) is a great example that fully living is possible after trauma.” ~ Dr. Megan Weigel – Author of Monday Mantras with Megan and Nurse Practitioner
“When we pick up a non-fiction book it is often to learn something about ourselves or something about someone else. You Are Deathless brings together both by unfolding as one woman’s journey of growth triggered by a single traumatic event. Yet the seeds were planted from her childhood experiences. We don’t all have that single pivot point in our lives, and yet the process of reaching adulthood with strong physical, emotional, and spiritual health, requires many of these same steps. Understanding our past, recognizing our strengths and weaknesses, taking the time to invest in our community/family, and continuing to learn more about our physical and emotional health. This book provides both a story of incredible strength and a guide for our own continued learning. Thank you, Nicole.” ~ Sharon Owen – Captain (Retired USAF)
Published August 15th, 2022
In the book You Are Deathless, Nicole Kerr shares her journey about awakening to herself and the transforming work of aligning her soul, spirit, mind, and body. Through her own death, Nicole was forced to shed ascribed identities, such as being a people-pleaser, to instead develop an authentic, loving relationship with herself and God.
Her story proves that we can put to death the punishing, angry God that man created. This allows the beautiful God of love and acceptance whom she encountered in her own death to emerge and accompany us in day-to-day life.
Nicole beautifully presents how her NDE was actually an STE: A Spiritually Transformative Experience. This aligns with the ten most common NDE lessons (Source: IANDS 2020 Annual Report), the first of which is We do not die. Nicole has persevered through enormous suffering and pain to create the life she now loves.
Nicole has seen what awaits you at the end of this life because she’s been there, and she can assure you that it’s a new beginning more beautiful than you can now comprehend. A good death begins today, and with it, a great life. Through Nicole’s death experience, you can learn how to live your life to the fullest. You can engage in your own metamorphosis without having to die like Nicole did.
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