This picture was taken last year at a restaurant in Atlanta. I had just finished a book signing for the release of Book 3 in The Stella Trilogy and was to act in the stage-play Blakk Amerika: From Prophets to Pimps the next day. Hungry, me and two sisters decided to sneak off from the group and grab a bite. This is me posing with the daughter of one of the sisters with me.

This picture is significant because it is at this dinner that I explained my vision for my next book, Nora’s story. The ladies were encouraging as we discussed our thoughts on The Harlem Renaissance movement and the ideas for the book. I wanted to create an environment where the character would, literally, interact with history. What if you were seventeen years old and had the chance to be in the presence of such persons as Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Car Van Vechten? You are seventeen though which comes with its own set of challenges and rebellions. The decisions you would make then as compared to you as an adult would definitely be different. More so, how would your parents feel if you ran away to follow your dreams without a word?

The ladies were excited as we talked on and on. One of them said that she even had a book she would send me to help with the research.

Our conversation expanded to other topics but when I got home I began work on this vision. The conversation started coming back to me as if I’d just gotten up from the table and the visions poured in. The book the sister said she would send even arrived a couple weeks later. I knew then that I was meant to write this book.

Speak It + Believe it + Act on It = Receive It

The lesson I’ve learned throughout the years as well as from this experience is to learn to speak things into existence. This is the first step to genuinely achieving our goals. I find often that we miss one or more of the formula above. Either we don’t fully believe that we are capable, we do not act on it or we didn’t speak it into existence in the first place.

For too long we’ve taken words for granted. We talk bad about people, slander them, berate them. We talk bad about ourselves, beat ourselves up and berate ourselves. We throw curses on others and on ourselves as if it means nothing. As if we are bullet proof with weapons of war sliding off our backs. Meanwhile, we wake up groggy and irritated. We stress and speak negatively about everything. Our words are seeping into our souls and we don’t even realize it, and the correlation between the things we say and the life we live is lost to us.

Words are not just a verbalizing of human thought but words are also spiritual and they live. They do not exit our mouths void but go on to produce. Whether they go on to perform works against us or for us is largely dependent upon the energy we put behind it. If you believe in something sincerely enough and you put that belief behind those words when you speak it then it has no other choice but to come into being. It has no choice but to be born.

“You are responsible for your life and if you’re sitting around waiting for someone to come help you, you’re wasting your time. Only you have the responsibility to move your life forward.”  Oprah Winfrey

When I was in my early teens I used to be so excited about my birthday coming up. I am still excited when it comes around but back then I wanted people to remember it. When they didn’t, I felt let down. I felt as if I had been forgotten.

I am 30 now and what I’ve learned is not to depend on others to dictate how I feel. While no one can do it alone, waiting for people to remember me does not lead to a legacy. Action does. Doing what needs to be done because I like doing it and because it helps people, does. Doing good just for the sake of it and expecting nothing in return, does. Showing love and kindness in a cruel world, does.

While I have no control over outside forces that seek to destroy me, I do have control over my actions and how I feel. Ultimately, I am responsible for my choice, my decisions good or bad, and for moving my life forward.

Putting such a thing as your life in the hands of someone else is not only dangerous, it is self-destructing and leads to poverty. You don’t have to wait for the events of a day to unfold to see what kind of day you will have, you can decide what kind of day you will have.

Here’s to forward movement and new beginnings. To the birth of an idea and seeing it through to a full manifestation of being, the humble journey to greatness. Here’s to speaking it into existence.

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About the author:

A native of Chicago IL, Ysrayl is a Historical Fiction Author, Blogger, and Poet. Founder of Literary Korner Publishing, LK Pub. Writer’s Workshop and The PBS Blog, Yecheilyah’s most recent and notable work is The Stella Trilogy. As an artist, EC seeks to create work that promotes healthy research into the true cultural identity, laws, customs and traditions of the African American for self-revolution and advancement. In addition, to release all people from the limited ways in which we tend to think and to feel. Ysrayl and her husband now reside in the Shreveport, LA area where she is putting the finishing touches on her novel in progress. Renaissance: The Nora White Story (Book 1) is due for release on  July 15, 2017.

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Renaissance: The Nora White Story

Available 5th July 2017

When seventeen-year-old Nora White successfully graduates High School in 1922 Mississippi and is College bound, everyone is overjoyed and excited. Everyone except Nora. She dreams of Harlem, Cotton Clubs, Fancy Dresses, and Langston Hughes. For years, she’s sat under Mr. Oak, the big oak tree on the plush green grass of her families five acres, and daydreamed of The Black Mecca.

The ambitious, young Nora is fascinated by the prospect of being a famous writer in The Harlem Renaissance and decides she doesn’t want to go to College. Despite her parent’s staunch protest, Nora finds herself in Jacobsville, New York, a small town forty-five minutes outside of Harlem.

Shocked by their daughter’s disappearance, Gideon and Molly White are plagued with visions of the deadly south, like the brutal lynching of Gideon’s sister years ago. As the couple embark on a frightening and gut wrenching search for Nora, they are each stalked by their own traumatic past. Meanwhile, Nora learns that the North is not all it’s cracked up to be.

Can Gideon and Molly overcome their disturbing past in time to find their daughter before it’s too late?

“When I finished reading Renaissance: The Nora White Story I actually shouted. I loved, loved this book. From beginning to end. The characters are still alive inside my mind. The setting as well. I could smell the hot soup the girls had or the rain on the hot earth. The dialogue is superb; I can still hear the soft southern accent in my mind.” – Adele Marie Park

Other books by Yecheilyah Ysrayl

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