Rogues Angels Present: My Name is Thank-You by Kaizen Love

Please welcome Kaizen Love author of My Name is Thank-You.

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MY NAME IS THANK-YOU

by Kaizen Love

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1.  What or who inspired you to start writing?

I have always been a writer. My life's goal was to publish my first novel before I turned thirty. The sudden death of my father before my twenty-ninth birthday and the courage and love of my fiancé really pushed me into making sure that dream became a reality.

2.  How did you come up with your idea for your novel?

I was actually taking a shower when these characters came to me. I think of it more as a gift, than an idea. I jumped out of the shower and wrote as fast as my fingers would allow. Before I knew it, six weeks had passed and I had my first novel.

3.  What expertise did you bring to your writing?

I have no expertise that I bring to my writing. I am not an expert at anything. There is always room for improvement in my world. What I did bring to my writing though, was a strong desire to create characters that would bring something new and fresh to people's lives. I wanted to create lives that were filled with adversities, and show how a much power our thoughts have on us in every moment of our day. "My Name Is Thank-You" does just that, it allows people to witness how these girls overcome abuse, rejection, and fear with forgiveness in their hearts and a smile on their faces. Their stories are our stories, we all have the ability to be the best versions of ourselves, and living a happy life despite life's hardships is very possible.

4.  What would you want your readers to know about you that might not be in your bio?

I never quite know how to answer these questions, because I never really know what people would like to know about me. Hmmm...I am the youngest of seven kids, and the only daughter. I have an amazing partner, and we love Key Lime Pie.

5.  As far as your writing goes, what are your future plans?

I am actually in the process of writing my second novel. It will lean towards a romance, with philosophical undertones, and hopefully a bit of comedy.

6.  What is the best and worst advice you ever received? (regarding, writing, or publishing)

The best advice that I ever received was from a dear friend of mine who also happens to be a writer. He also happens to be 90 years old, so I take his advice very seriously. He says, "It is a writers duty to write. It is our responsibility to be the storytellers, the creators, and the wonderers, planting seeds of imagination into the minds of children and adults alike. We are the real magicians, because we hold the key to fairytales."

7.  Do you outline your books or just start writing?

I admit, I have not outlined anything since college; I allow the story to go where it wants, I simply follow.

8.  How do you maintain your creativity?

This is a tricky question because some days I don't maintain my creativity at all. There have been many days, weeks even where I can't find one creative word to write, or sentence to build. I try to listen to myself, and when the creativity flows I work, when it doesn't, I don't force it.

9.  Who is your favorite character in the book. Can you tell us why?

Asking an author to pick their favorite character is like asking a mom to pick her favorite baby. I guess if I had to choose I would say Josephine; because she was my unspoken heroine.

10.                Can you give us a sneak peak into this book?

      The weather is beginning to change. I lay in bed peeking out from under my covers, the sunlight barely making its way into the creases that I call my eyes. I can see the trees outside of my window, the way the wind rustles the leaves as their colors begin to change from bright green to a rusty shade of orange. All year I look forward to when I get to witness the leaves as they evolve. Watching as they dance around in the freedom of the wind, disembarking from their temporary tree branch home. Grateful that I get to witness their fall, landing softly on the ground, continuing the cycle that we call life.

     I miss the feel of the wind. Closing my eyes again, I wished that I were one of those leaves, able to disembark from my body and dance freely into the wind. Turning into soil so that my life would not have been a waste but a blessing. Adding to the richness of a newly birthed plant, or adding years to a tree that has witnessed as many years as the earth. The same earth that it ripped through to stand higher upon the ground. I grip my covers tighter. I can’t keep my eyes closed for too long anymore, without remembering.

     “Josephine,” I hear my mother screaming my name from the bottom of the stairs. She has been trying to get me to leave my room for almost two months, and now that school has started I may not be able to hide in here forever. I hear her heavy footsteps as they barrel up the stairs. She is either still drunk from last night or starting her day off like she normally does with a special kick added to her coffee. “Josephine,” I hear her screaming now from outside of my door, her voice piercing through my walls, and my ears. “Josephine, you stupid child, I don’t care if you want to sleep until you’re dead, but you are either going to go to school or live out on the street where you belong.”

     It’s sad, when you are so used to the viciousness in a person’s voice, that it no longer causes an effect. Your heart no longer hurts, and that rippling pain that one feels throughout their body when being screamed at, or confronted, no longer exists. I continue to lie in bed, shutting my eyes tighter, eventually pulling the covers over my head, shutting out all sights, sounds, and smells of the world that exists outside of my cocoon. In here I am safe. I am safe from my parents. I am safe from the shadows that do not belong to me.

     “Josephine, if you’re not sitting outside waiting for that school bus again, I swear I’m going to have Father get someone to bust your door down. Everybody at the charity auction last night wanted to know why Josephine wasn’t in school all last week? You think I give a damn that you want to be an uneducated streetwalker? These people are my friends, and they are very generous when donating to our charities. I’m sick and tired of you making us look like fools. If you were a boy you would have had more common sense.”

     She yells, she hollers, she says, “If you were a boy.” I’ve been hearing her repeat those words all of my life. And every time they enter my ears my heart grows a bit colder to the God that created me opposite of what was needed and wanted around here. If I were a boy, I wouldn’t be afraid of anything, or of anyone. I would be safe from evil hands that grope and roam. I would have no reason to be ashamed of my body or myself. I would never feel dirty, because I would be the one in control, and I would never use my strength to hurt anything smaller than me.

     I want to scream at God the way my mother screams at me. I want to march up to the gates of Heaven and kick my feet into the door as she does my bedroom. “God, get out here. Show your face, you coward. You have the whole world believing that you exist, and you’re nothing but a lying coward. You promise people salvation yet you can’t save them from anything; you couldn’t even save me. Why didn’t you save me you coward?”

     I replayed that conversation in my mind, sobbing into my pillow with a force so tremendous I thought my lungs were going to make their way up my throat and out of my mouth, exposing all of the air that I had inside of my body to the air that exists on the outside. I sobbed until I fell back asleep. Wrapped in the warmth of sadness, I sleep, I dream, I wake up screaming. Then, I sleep again. That is the tally of my days; what my existence has become because I was not born a boy.

BLURB:

My Name Is Thank-You allows us into the worlds of two very different thirteen-year-old girls. Each girl’s voice carries its own unique tone, as the girls beckon us to follow magically into their lives. One is a joyous story of hope against all odds, the search for acceptance, and the longing for unconditional love; the other a sad tale of unspeakable abuse, constant rejection, and an overwhelming sense of loneliness. Thank-You and Josephine create around us a world rich with emotion, one that will leave you inspired, breathless, and yearning for more words.

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EXCERPT:

"There is nothing better than being able to swim in a pool of knowledge so deep it forces ignorance to be uncomfortable in its own skin, to where it no longer holds a sense of being, a sense of purpose. That’s what books do. They allow us to live in the minds of every type of human. They allow us to taste the kind of freedom that even the end of slavery didn’t bring." -(My Name Is Thank-You)

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

Kaizen Love is an up and coming writer, spinning words into a beautiful web that should enrich the lives of all who read them. She has a positive and fresh take on life, and has mastered the art of storytelling. She grew up reading books by authors from every style, race, nationality, culture, and religious perspective; drawing inspiration from each one. Her greatest mission is to share love.

Amazon Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LPLHQ3W

Website: http://kaizenlove.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Kaizen-Love/1387506034846336?ref=hl

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/KaiZenLove

Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads

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