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Absolute Love Publishing Author Sarah Hackley

As humans, we are innately drawn to meaning. We want to know what someone’s words mean, what their actions mean. We desire knowledge of the meaning of life and of our place within its circle. We need to know there is meaning and that it exists in everything.

Writing gives us this. Writing—good writing—creates meaning. It takes the confusing, the disparate, the chaotic, the traumatic, and transforms it into a narrative that offers us a shimmering shard of truth, a shard we can wield or protect as we see fit.

As a reader, I have always needed that truth.

As a child and teen, I poured over the texts available to me, leaving the library week after week with books—stacked knees to chin—precariously held between two hands. Once home, I’d devour the words, greedily looking for shards strong enough to pierce my fears, fragments large enough to cover the holes left behind by uncertainty. And, over the years, I found them.

With books by my side, I uncovered countless pieces of truth, long-dead voices offering solace. I used these pieces, these fragments, these shards. Through words, I unearthed meaning. Through words, I began to make myself whole.

As a writer, however, the insight gained from other writers wasn’t enough. To heal completely, I needed to create my own insight, to turn my own pains and confusions into transformative truths. In doing so, I hoped, I also would be able to pass on to readers the small pieces of meaning I’d managed to gather, as had the writers before me. From those pieces, I hoped, other readers would unearth their own small, shimmering shards, and thus the cycle would continue.

It is this desire to share in the continual passing of meaning, to transmute negativity into something worthwhile, something understandable, that compels me to write the books I write. It is also why I choose to publish with a house that is in alignment with those goals. Alone, I am one writer speaking to myself. Together with Absolute Love Publishing, I am one writer speaking to the world. Together, we help spread meaning and goodness in an otherwise muddled world.

Absolute Love Publishing Author Michelle Hastie

There are far too many people suffering in today’s too-busy, fast-moving society to ignore the calling to bring peace and goodness to as many people as possible. Spreading goodness, love, and compassion in the world is our purpose for living. Where I have seen the biggest need to fulfill this passion for myself is in the world of food, movement, body image, and weight.

People are struggling with eating disorders, obesity, excess weight, body image obsessions, and a laundry list of other related issues all stemming from the separation and obsessive “doing” nature that comes with living a life disconnected from our true selves and from each other. My calling is to teach mindfulness to all human “doings” who are so desperate to feel better.

In an attempt to bring understanding, connection, and ultimately goodness to all, I feel called to expose this false sense of human identity and bring more honesty to our everyday habits and our underlying programming. When the truth behind our authentic lives is exposed, we can begin to learn from each other. Marianne Williamson reminds us:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. It’s not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

In a world that often feels so disconnected, it is imperative that we remember the inter-connectedness of us all. Through this inter-connectedness we can remember to spread goodness, love, and compassion where judgment and separation attempt to exist. Partnering with others who feel this way, like Absolute Love Publishing, enables me to offer healing to those people living lives as human “doings” instead of our more natural state of “beings.”

When you decide to let your light shine, you unconsciously give permission to the next person to do the same. In other words, when you send goodness to your neighbors, your neighbors receive permission to be their best selves, and ultimately pass that permission onto their neighbors. To me, there is nothing more important than this.

At Absolute Love Publishing, we believe in creating goodness in the world. This post is one of a series in which we’ve asked our authors to explain why they choose to align themselves with our publishing house and why they use their craft to create goodness…

Absolute Love Publishing Author Candace Gish

Many years ago, an amazing mentor of mine set me on a path I could have never predicted when she asked me a favor: that I start interviewing really great people who were wanting to make a difference in not only their lives but in the lives of people around them. I tried it – and loved every minute of it. In fact, these interviews inspired me so much that I decided I wanted to find a way to create a record of it and also make it a bigger scale.

My daughters were very young at the time – all four were under the age of six! I started thinking of all the inspiring women I came across, and I really wanted my daughters to listen to these interviews as they got older and be inspired by them like I was. I started recording more, and as my listeners expanded, I could see that others wanted to be inspired as well. This continued for years.

One day, I was talking to my business coach at the time, and I asked her what she thought about making a print version of these interviews. Is this a good idea? Could I reach even more people and make a bigger impact? She told me it would be a lot of work, but if I was up to it I should go for it!

Today, I am the proud creator of numerous anthologies. I believe people are craving books of inspiration, empowerment, love, determination, and kindness. Every time I read a story someone has submitted, I am so humbled and grateful they are allowing me to share it with others. And I am blessed with lifelong friendships and a journey that has brought amazing individuals into my life.

Absolute Love Publishing Author Cara Bartek

I am fascinated with the idea of quantum superposition. I know this sounds strange, especially for a children’s author, but it is an idea that always has held a little magic for me. And yes, an idea like this does seem more suited for someone the likes of Stephen Hawking or Neil Degrasse Tyson  or possibly even my very serious accountant rather than for an ordinary person like me—what with all the Greek letters, hieroglyphic-looking scribbles, and logs that don’t grow on trees. Because, you know, theoretical physics can be intense. But theoretical physics can also be, well, theoretical. And those little theories can shed some philosophical light on issues for ordinary people just like me.

Quantum superposition states that subatomic particles exist in two different states until the particle in question is observed. In other words, the most basic building blocks of our universe, the subatomic particles, exist as both waves and particles until seen. These two different states are actually superimposed upon one another until a scientist or an ordinary person like me takes a look.

This tells us some astonishingly fundamental things about life. First, that the universe is much stranger, much more extraordinary, and much more incredible than we could ever imagine. Second, that we human beings hold within us awesome power – we can change the fundamental building blocks of our world simply by looking.

Quantum superposition also tells me something fundamental about my life. It tells me that my life is, in fact, in superposition. My circumstances are both good and bad, done and undone, happy and sad, successful and unsuccessful. It’s all about my choices.

I didn’t come to writing via a normal path. For me, writing always was something I imagined I would do after I did normal, responsible things like work a normal, responsible job. As luck would have it, in the commission of normal, responsible things, my life changed. I gave birth to my first little girl, Caroline.

Caroline was like most babies, squiggly and pink and full of poop. However, she did something to me that was most uncommon. She made me consider my life, and the decisions I made that shaped that life, from her perspective. And that perspective changed my writing.

Serafina Loves Science! is a series about an eleven-year old girl who uses her love for all things science to figure out friends, school, parents, and life. I write these books to introduce complicated scientific principles to children in a way that is fun and simple and to foster a love of learning and curiosity about the natural world. More importantly, however, I write to encourage the millions of girls out there who are existing in superposition, both loving and hating science—feeling frustrated and fulfilled, scared and confident.

These books are for them. I want to move their beautiful little minds into a position of self-assurance, where they can feel free to explore and learn and to become the women they were meant to be.

George Jones, wearing a rhinestone polyester suit and sporting the latest haircut from the 1960s, once said, “I’ve had choices, since the day that I was born.” While he may have chosen clothes that are most certainly a fire hazard and often forgotten where he was, his song perfectly sums up the way I think about my life, a life that is in superposition.

I believe that I determine my own fate. I believe that I have choices every day. I can wake up or hit snooze. I can write or not write. I can do bad or I can do good. Today, as I write silly stories about a sweet little girl who loves science, I choose good. I choose to do something to bring goodness and a love for science to all the little Carolines in the world who might also be superposition. And I am so thankful to have the opportunity to do that through my partnership with Absolute Love Publishing.

At Absolute Love Publishing, we believe in creating goodness in the world. This post is one of a series in which we’ve asked our authors to explain why they choose to align themselves with our publishing house and why they use their craft to create goodness …

Absolute Love Publishing Author Steve Schatz

Goodness is an ever-moving target and a very personal one. Each of us has a different and evolving definition of what goodness is. But whatever the definition, why I pursue it, promote it, try to dance with it, is easy. I have seen in my life that the things I feed with my attention and energy tend to grow and take up more room in my mind and in my life.

When I concentrate on my fears, they grow. When I concentrate on resentment, it grows. So, when I concentrate on joyous work, that is what grows. They say if you have two dogs and feed only one, the dog you feed is the one that grows.

When I write, I am completely consumed with figuring out the plot, how the characters talk with each other, and how to move the story along. However, what really feeds me, what keeps me going during the 15th rewrite, is reaching toward a better understanding of a way of life that exists not only in the Adima Chronicles, but—more and more—in my own life as well.

In that life, each one of us has come here to experience, learn, and share. In that life, each of us is responsible for creating sacred spaces, places where we focus on that which is just beyond our reach, that to which we aspire. With every action I take, I strive for awareness—of what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. As I take each aware action, I take responsibility also for those actions. If things turn out the way I wanted—great. If not, I seek learning, not blame.

I am troubled when I look at Young Adult bookshelves in stores. So many books are post-apocalyptic killing sprees. Many are updates of old stories of youth railing against fate and then escaping or being rescued. The Adima books intentionally tell a story of responsible action. The characters are not passive. They must decide which teachers to listen to and what lessons to take. They must direct their own change. At the end of the story, each character is different.

I believe there is always hope. There are always lessons. And it is each person’s decision what dog to feed. I strive to communicate these beliefs in my books, using my words to reach toward the sacred and the good. I’m thankful to work with a publisher who also strives for the good and believes in taking creative action for change. Together, we spread light through action. It is my hope that we also show others how to do the same.

Absolute Love Publishing Author Janet McLaughlin

Do you remember the thrill of reading your first book? I do. It was one from The Bobbsey Twins series. I can still remember the feel of it. The smell of it. Reading that book set something free inside of me. Even at that very young age, I knew. The knowledge of the world was available to me. All I had to do was find the right books.

That same feeling came over me in my early twenties when a chance comment set me in search of information on Edgar Cayce, the Sleeping Prophet. I knew instinctively that this was a path I needed to explore. In the following decades, I moved from Cayce to Jane Roberts, to Wayne Dyer, to Deepak Chopra, to Lee Carroll, and others. I personally interviewed several psychics, or intuitives as most prefer to be called. Their stories were inspirational and sometimes chilling.

After years of research, I had a cache of knowledge that I wanted to share. I also was aware that, starting around the early 1990s, the children who were being incarnated into our world changed. They were savvier, more skeptical, and less malleable. Many were coming in with abilities that frightened them or made them feel “different.” In fact, those were the most common themes I found with the intuitives that I interviewed—fear and isolation.

I wanted to use the knowledge I’d accumulated over the years to help these special kids to feel more comfortable about who they are. To see that they aren’t alone. That’s when I decided to write a novel about a gifted teen who felt isolated in her world because she was different. A girl who eventually learned to share her secret with close friends and to use her gifts to help others. That was the birth of The Soul Sight Mysteries series.

Finding Absolute Love Publishing was the Universe’s gift to me. Working with like-minded women who “get” what I am trying to do; who don’t try to change the essence of my story but instead work to enhance it; whose underlying message—“to create and publish projects promoting goodness in the world”—is so in sync with mine. Together, I believe, we are creating an opportunity for the children who read my books to not only have hours of enjoyment losing themselves in the world of Zoey Christopher but also to learn that helping others is rewarding in and of itself. And, maybe, even realize that being different isn’t so bad after all.

Absolute Love Publishing Author Meredith Ethington

When I became a mother, I stepped into a vast world of unknowns. Millions of women before me had done it and lived to tell the tale, yet it was something so completely foreign to me that I wanted to devour everything I could on the subject. So I did what I do, and I read. I read parenting books and blogs, and I tried to catch a glimpse of what really being a mother was all about.

I also started sharing photos and little stories about my girl online. I realized then, that though I had a lot to share about my daughter, I had a whole lot more to share about how becoming a mother was affecting me. My emotions around being in the unfamiliar territory of motherhood poured out online. And while I enjoyed the process of putting my feelings out there, I didn’t expect anyone to actually want to read what I wrote.

I was wrong. Instead of feeling alone three weeks postpartum and dealing with an array of wild emotions, I suddenly felt like I could hop online and connect. I felt like I could write about my frustrations with motherhood and my joys, and that women were connecting with my story. The good, the bad, and the ugly included because that’s what real mothering is about.

Writing helped me feel less alone. It helped me feel like I wasn’t crazy. It helped me laugh and work through hard feelings. It also, it turns out, helped others.

Over the past ten years of writing online, I have received countless emails that said, “Thank you for writing that. I didn’t know anyone else felt that way.” Or “I thought I was the only one who thought like that.” Over the years of sharing my words, I have come to realize that there is a fundamental need to connect with each other in a space where we don’t feel judged and can be completely ourselves. I think that’s true of people going through any kind of trial or heartache, but I think it’s especially true of motherhood.

Women crave a space to be honest, and they are searching for a place to be heard. Motherhood has changed me in ways that I could never have imagined, and it has brought out things in me (both good and bad) that I didn’t know existed. While I could have struggled alone, or continued to feel like I was the only one who hated parenting some days, I chose to write about it instead. And those words, my words, helped others. There is no greater gift than being able to help another person struggling in her own life journey.

Brene Brown once shared a quote from Theodore Roosevelt that she says changed her life, and it has a lot of meaning to me personally as it relates to how I live my life.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs … [And] if he fails, at least fails while Daring Greatly.”

Motherhood is all about daring greatly, too, isn’t it? We don’t know what the future holds. We know we aren’t perfect, and we can be scared to death of something happening to these people that we love with so much vulnerability it hurts, but we keep showing up in the arena every day to do our best. That, my friends, takes courage.

It’s not easy to show up and be seen. I’m a writer, but I am not perfect. I am not, by any means, the model of motherhood, but I open up. I share my life, as I see it. I feel that by being “out there” for the world to see, by being vulnerable, I show strength. Working on myself as a mother, I believe, shows the Most Important One that I am in the arena doing my best. It also encourages and supports other women to the same.

I continue to put my words out there because I know that, although they help me, they might help someone else, too. They might touch the mom who is also in the arena, thinking she is alone, wiping the sweat from her brow, and daring greatly to be a mother, even though she is making plenty of mistakes along the way. And that’s the most important thing to me—supporting that mom.

To me, part of crafting goodness with my words is sharing the real parts of parenting—not just the pretty ones. I’ve found that in doing that I’ve been able to help change the conversation, to lift a mother who is struggling. In the process, I’ve also transformed myself into a mother who is not afraid to let go of the idealistic mother I dreamed I would be, and instead, be a real one who isn’t afraid to share her story. I welcome the opportunity to continue sharing that story and supporting others through my partnership with Absolute Love Publishing.