Happy Holidays! A RARE and Special Gift from Me to You :)

Finding Balance: Love Versus Life

Sometimes when we find love, we lose ourselves.   We meet that amazing individual and before we even know what hit us we have suddenly disappeared inside of a serious relationship.  We disappear because we have begun to neglect our friends, our professional business, our family and often times even our health.  Ladies, think about your last long term relationship?  How did it affect your weight?  I know for me, I tend to gain ten to forty extra pounds when I settle down because we spend so much time eating and laying around enjoying each others company that any focus on fitness seems to fly out of the window. Ultimately, we get to a point where we struggle to find a balance between the love and living a healthy and productive life as an individual.

 I’ve always had a hard time with this, but I came to realize that much of the problem was that I hadn’t taken a good enough amount of time to know, love and commit to myself.  As a result, it was easy to pour all of my love into someone else.  Now that I have taken the time to love me first, I’ve found that I love others in a far more health way.  Even still, a new challenge has risen to the surface.  In an effort to avoid backtracking or resorting to my old ways, I found myself avoiding relationships altogether.  I tried to convince myself that I just wanted to be single so that I wouldn’t risk falling into that same unbalanced pattern again.  Just when all of these jumbled and confusing thoughts threatened to overwhelm and consume me, I took a break from my hectic existence to watch the movie, “Eat Pray Love.”

In the movie, based on the book by the same name, a woman my age finds herself in the midst of a marriage and a life that is no longer fulfilling. In an attempt to find her joy, she leaves all that she knows for a year and takes a journey of self-discovery.  On that journey she focuses on learning and loving herself by placing herself in new environments with new people and spending a lot of time in prayer and meditation.  As she nears the end of her journey, love finds her and initially she runs from it feeling that it might cause her to lose that balance that she worked so hard to attain.

Just when she is prepared to walk away from the love, a wise teacher that she met along the way reminds her that "losing balance for love is a part of living a balanced life." In all of our struggles to get it all right and to have it all figured out,... let's not lose sight of what's really important…Love.

Beautiful Monster

I can only breathe you in moderation

Your very essence emits a mysterious mist that leads to utter intoxication

Get away from me…

You put my ability to control myself in jeopardy

I might just take you and make you mine eternally

I don’t want to like you...

I’ve already read that story

I know that it ends in a dangerous territory

You are breaking all of the rules…

We’re supposed to be friends, just really cool

To want anything more would make me a fool

You’re going to make me love you…

Wait…I already do

Rejection Reloaded

"I'm and artist and I'm sensitive about my - - - -"  - Erykah Badu

I’m pretty darn confident.   But every now and then I get a pretty hard blow that darn near knocks me off my little personal pedestal.  This past summer I made the decision to pitch my latest self-published novel, “Swag” to a few major publishers.  I really believed in the work and felt that I had grown quite a bit as a writer since the last book that I released (“Floss”).  

The first correspondence that I got from one of the publishers was favorable.  They were interested in my work and requested for me to send the entire manuscript.  That felt good.  Then, two of the other publishers sent me rejection letters within a week of one another.  The first one was cool, because they said my book wasn’t a fit for what they were looking for and they sent some amazing resources to help me improve my writing skills.  The last one that I received said that my writing wasn’t strong enough.  That stung.  

I love and welcome honest feedback, whether it’s good or bad, but that made me start to wonder, is writing books, really what I am supposed to be doing?  It made me second guess myself, which I don’t do often.  I mean, I absolutely love all things that have anything to do with reading, books and words, but does that mean that I am supposed to be an author?

“Perhaps I’m just supposed to be a literary personality or socialite,” I thought.  Perhaps someone like a Kim Kardashian or Paris Hilton of the Literary Industry.  Not necessarily having the skill or talent, but just as popular and paid as the accomplished and skilled actors, musicians and other entertainers….

But God…

Swag was released over a year ago, yet just this past week, out of nowhere,  I began hearing from readers whose opinions I really respect, about how much they enjoyed Swag and how they cannot wait for the next installment (“Intrigue”).  They didn’t know what I was going through.  They didn’t know that I had begun to doubt if this was really what I was supposed to be doing.  They didn’t know that their honest opinions came right on time…at a time when I needed them most...  

So to all of my readers:  I really appreciate you.  Thank you for being the conduit for my confirmations.

"INTRIGUE" a novel by Monica Marie Jones

Intrigue by Monica Marie Jones (The Third Installment of the Floss Series)M

Dionysus Staves has turned her life around. Once a heartless vixen that used men to get what she wanted, she’s now a well-known and successful entrepreneur in the entertainment industry. Just when she finally feels that she has control of her future, Abel Harrington unexpectedly re-enters her life.  He too has made some major changes, the most shocking change being his transformation from a man that played just as hard as, if not more than, he worked to a pastor.

Both Dionysus and Abel have a presence about them—the looks, the personality, and the status—that is so powerful all they have to do is enter a room and everyone is instantly drawn to them in some way.  Once their paths cross again after years of no contact, it is only natural that they are drawn to one another.

Now that Abel has answered his calling and Dionysus has left her sordid past behind to become a successful business owner, how will this magnetic and addictive aura that they emit affect their career paths and their relationship?

Will Dionysus be able to let go of her feelings of inadequacy based on her indiscretions of the past and be open to the idea that she does deserve good things?  Will Abel be able to ward off all of the forward advances from the women of the church and the pressure to find a virtuous woman to take as his wife?

Can Abel and Dionysus put aside the pain of the past and the pressures of the present in order to take a chance on love?

    

The Monica Marie Jones Show! "Do Your Words Match Your Actions?"

The Monica Marie Jones Show!!! "Why Do We Want What We KNOW is NOT Good ...