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Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2004 |
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News, updates, & pronouncements from Pat Ballard, the Queen of Rubenesque Romances |
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Nobody can make you feel inferior
without your consent.
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Something to think about.... The eye
sees only what the mind is prepared to understand. I hope everyone will stop right here and and think about the power in this quote. An article in Sunday's Tennesseean entitled "Do You See What She Sees" really brought Bergson's statement home to me. The article was about a young woman who has suffered for years with anorexia nervosa. Many times her weight dropped well below 100 lbs, yet when she looked at herself in the mirror she saw a fat, disgusting body. Even when she was in the hospital with feeding tubes trying to save her life, she looked in the mirror and saw fat. Somehow, she had trained her mind to only comprehend "fat" when she looked in the mirror. How many of us have allowed our minds to only see ourselves in a certain way? How many of us have programmed ourselves to only see our "bad" areas when we look into a mirror? Or only think about our weaknesses when we think about ourselves? The good news is that we can reprogram our minds. We can teach our minds to comprehend new images. To appreciate new beauty. To accept new values. All we have to do is stop feeding negative thoughts into our subconscious. Retrain our minds to comprehend our good points, so our eyes can see the real "us" when we look into a mirror. Train our
minds to "see" someone worth loving when we think about ourselves. |
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A Word From Pat I had the honor of being asked to bring my books and be a part of the "Welcome Home to Stonewall" Day in my mom's hometown of Stonewall, Mississippi on October 16. The reason I count this as an honor is because my mom died when she was only 49 years old. So I felt honored to attend this day in her memory. The ladies who asked me to come knew my mom when she was in school. My "spot" happened to be right beside one of these women, so all day long she would tell people who knew my mom that I was there. I had several ladies come over and tell me they went to school with my mom and how much they liked her, and how sweet she was. I saw cousins that I hadn't seen in years. I saw cousins that I had never seen. I saw a few old school friends, and many, many wonderful friends and family that I'm close to. It was a very rewarding day for me. I felt warm and loved. This Thanksgiving month, I'm thankful for family, friends, and wonderful memories. Have a fantastic November, everyone. And those of you in the States, have a wonderful and safe Thanksgiving.
Love,
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Books — Existing and Upcoming Abigail's Revenge, my fifth novel, is now finished! It's a Romantic Suspense, and is different than any other novel I've written. It's also a good bit longer. Abigail Avery was framed for the murder of her father and sent to prison when she was only eighteen years old. A bunch of crooked "good ole boys" from her hometown of Leaky Springs, Mississippi want her land and house. Abigail doesn't have any idea why they would want her property. But they were willing to kill for it and send her to prison, hoping to get her out of the way long enough to convince her to sell or to acquire it in some other manner. But now, ten years later, Abigail's out of prison and heading back to Leaky Springs to get revenge on the people, especially the judge, who stole ten years of her life. And now that I'm finished with Abigail's Revenge, I'm going to finish my first nonfiction book, The 10 Commandments of Self-Love, a motivational book on accepting ourselves as we are instead of obsessing over trying to look like some unrealistic actress or image we see in an magazine. Meanwhile, my new book Dangerous Curves Ahead—a compilation of 10 short stories—is available through my new publisher, Pearlsong Press (www.pearlsong.com). After its May 2004 publication, Dangerous Curves Ahead received a glowing review from Cindi Appel on the Fearless Books review website. Appel wrote: Ballard doesn’t pull punches. She shows her heroines exhibiting ample will and tenacity to tell off those who would shame them into becoming something they aren’t just to blend in with society's narrow-minded notions of beauty. To read the entire review, go to www.pearlsong.com/dangerouscurvesahead.htm. You can also read an excerpt from Dangerous Curves Ahead's title story, Dangerous Curves, by clicking on the title link in this sentence. Pearlsong Press has also re-released my existing books, Wanted: One Groom, Nobody’s Perfect, His Brother’s Child and A Worthy Heir.
The Pearlsong Press edition of Nobody's Perfect
was called
"a charming, witty love story with a twist"
in the July 2004
Small Press Bookwatch section of Midwest Book Review. Read the whole review at
www.pearlsong.com/nobodysperfect.htm, or an excerpt at I’m extremely happy that
my books are now available in both print and eBook format. Please visit
Pearlsong Press and check out all the options that are available. |
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Ask your local
library to stock my books, allowing many others to enjoy them |
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Weighty Matters We the Educators This is the first of several stories that I will share with you, in this series of "We the Educators," regarding our responsibility to speak up and say something to people who insist on promoting the "fat is bad" mentality. I think most people do it out of habit, thinking it's an acceptable thing to do. But if those of us who are serious about changing the stinking thinking of our society on this subject will just bring their attention to what they're saying, we can at least make them aware of their discrepancy. Several years ago, at the office where I worked, I was going about my daily life in my cubicle when my concentration was suddenly interrupted by one of my co-workers slamming her phone down and saying, "Fatugly bitch!" Now this particular co-worker was new to the office and hadn't been fully educated to the fact that I don't allow anyone to get by with making negative fat comments in my presence. So I promptly said, "Excuse me?" No answer from the the cubicle across the room—there were ten cubicles in the large office where we worked. "Excuse me?" I repeated. By now, several of our other co-workers had started to quietly chuckle, because they knew what was in store for the unsuspecting young woman. Since she hadn't answered me, I wasn't sure she knew that I was talking to her, so I got up and went to her cubicle. "Was that you on the phone?" I asked. "Yes," she answered sheepishly. "But I didn't mean anything toward you, Pat." "Oh, I know that," I assured her patiently. "I just wanted to make sure you know that fatugly isn't one word. You can be one without the other."
Her education had begun. |
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Calendar Of Events Come see me this Saturday, Nov. 6 at the Pearlsong Press table at the Mississippi Authors Festival in Collins, MS!
Admission is free to the event, which
is being held in the Family Life Center of the Collins United Methodist
Church from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. There will be booksignings, readings, and
musical entertainment. |
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Book Contest
Register to win a free copy of the Pat
Ballard book of your choice at Top 100 Women Sites:
http://www.top100womensites.com/contest.htm. |
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Newsletter Archives Read previous issues of The Queen's Proclamation at http://www.pearlsong.com/newsletterarchives.htm.
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The Queen's Proclamation is published by Pearlsong Press, Inc. P.O. Box 58065 │ Nashville, TN 37205 │ www.pearlsong.com ©2004 Pearlsong Press |
