Izzy in El Mareo virtual book tour

“The plane descended over the ocean, a deep, gorgeous blue fading into a turquoise hue as it neared the shoreline.”

There is something emotional about the ocean.  Whether standing at the point where it breaks upon a shore, or seeing it’s expansive ever-changing characteristics from the window of a plane, or floating on it in a boat or inner tube.  The ocean is mystical and deep and is a place I like go to reflect and listen.  Some may call it meditation, but I call it finding myself in her strength.  Energy is never created nor destroyed and all we are is energy.  Sometimes high energy buzzing with excitement or anger or irritation, and sometimes peaceful calm waves of satisfied energy and love.  Opening this novel by asking the reader to go to this place in their own mind was intended to set the stage based on where they are as the open the book.  Is their ocean choppy and churning with angst as it crashes on the shore, or are they contemplative and calm on the surface in the deepest blue?  My hope is they will find themselves in the pages of Izzy with similar feelings, similar experiences, and perhaps similar poor choices or situations that lead them to face their own deep ocean within themselves.  No matter where they are starting their journey with Izzy, this opening is intended to start the reader down that path of self-reflection.  Since most of Izzy’s turning points take place on the water or near the water I wanted that thread to be introduced very early on and weave its way through the story, pulling the reader along with it.  Water is life-giving and a source of sustainability for our cultures, our food and our history and is naturally a phenomenon we are attracted to.  Yet, we are still exploring and searching and wondering and discovering more about it each year.  I hope that is what each of my readers does with in themselves.  If they don’t yet, perhaps reading Izzy will be their first opportunity to do so.  It must be done intentionally with the desire to grow, even when it’s uncertain and scary and deep.  

 

 

SOME Q&A WITH THE AUTHOR!

1. Where did/do you grow up /live now? San Antonio
2. As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up? Lawyer or weather girl or sales professional
3. What is your education/career background? Churchill HS; The University of Texas at Austin (BS in Public Relations with a concentration in Spanish); John Maxwell Group Certified Speaker/Trainer/Coach; 15 years in hospitality mostly in Sales
4. Do you have kids and/or pets? 2 fur babies – Cali our 11 year old golden retriever and Cole our 1 ½ year old rescue crazy dog
5. On a Friday night, what are you most likely to be doing? You can find me on the couch with my hubby and puppies with a bottle of wine (or two!)
6. What do you like to do when you are not writing? Dance!  I love dancing, yoga, working out, watching sports, walking our dogs… anything to be outside when the weather is nice.
7. Who are some of your favorite authors? Jennifer Crusie, Brene Brown, Jennifer Weiner, John Maxwell
8. Do you have a bucket list? What are some of the things on it? Traveling so much for my 15-year career the bucket list is ever-changing and typically places I’d love to see.  Experiences like Paris, Italian wine country, Mallorca, Seychelles, Napa, Chile… I’d love to see The Masters live, take my mom to NYC at Thanksgiving, have babies…

What writing your book taught you

It’s funny that I say I want my readers to learn to love themselves and gain self-confidence by seeing their mistakes and their shame in words on these pages lived out by someone else.  Really, this whole thing started as a healing journey for me.  I had overcome and learned a lot about myself after living in Mexico, then I lost it again and found myself in one more controlling relationship that I ended up married into.  I needed to re-set and re-group to understand where I had lost myself once the divorce was final.  It was time to write the book and remind myself how strong I am, how resilient I am, and who I am continuing to become.  I might have to learn the same lesson over and over again in different phases of life, but if I can become intentional and spend time reflecting on what I’ve learned, I am bound to learn and grow into a better version of me each time...eventually!  I learned that we don’t have to have all the answers to get started.  We just have to start!  And the beauty that comes from not knowing is the doorway to what it could become.  Having all that structure can be comforting, but also restricting.  Whether you’ve built your personal structure around what looks popular on Instagram or whether it’s based upon what your parents said was good, or even if you’ve created a framework to live by behind hardened walls from your own disappointments. Like the “pirate code” from Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean, “they’re more like guidelines.”  If we can let things flow and be open to other ideas while staying true to our core selves, we can overcome anything!  Writing this book also taught me a lot about moving forward, even tiny steps, means you’re still going forward.  I would struggle with writer’s block or write a section, then hate it and delete it all.  I would feel overwhelmed about the idea of sitting down for hours to write another full chapter so I would avoid it and find other things that needed to be done.  What I really had to learn was the discipline of just taking a few minutes, a few lines, without holding myself to a strict schedule, was the freedom within the framework I needed to be successful.  I also didn’t share my journey of writing with many people.  It was my personal experience and it was better for me to experience it pure and raw without anyone else’s opinion haunting me.  What that helped reinforce for me was that boundaries are also critical to one’s life.  Not walls, not open gates anyone can walk through, but a nice fence that you can open and close when needed. Sometimes it’s okay to close the gate and peacefully love what’s happening within.  Lastly, this was the most humbling experience as I exposed my personal feelings and a piece of work that was all mine to then have it edited and changed and made better.  I struggled often with hurt feelings and irritations which were simply my ego wanting to be right.  In the end I was shown without a doubt that one person cannot go it alone and that many minds are always better than one.  It’s okay to allow others to help make me better, especially when they are experts in something that I am not!  Letting go of that brought me freedom.  And a great book!