DR. MEL'S MESSAGE - From my novels to my other projects, no telling what you will read. This is the only place you will get to read about how I developed a screenplay into a novel and what is the driving force. I will talk about many things from films to books to acting to producing. It really will depend on where my mind takes me. I hope you will join me on this journey.
Side hustle that saved me: I found a way to make up to 1 000€ in basically 2 days as a side hustle and I would love to share it with you because it helped me through the worst time of my life. Kindle Edition
"It was the hardest time of my life. Something I was working on for years just disappeared the moment I thought I finally created something. I found myself lost. No job, no income, no plan, and a huge debt on my name. After a short time of depression and self-pity. I realized nobody else will fix this for me. The first thing I needed to change was my mindset. “I can fix it myself” was something I was telling myself every day. People have much bigger problems in the world, and this is the time where everything is possible. So I started thinking. The first thing I realized is that I will never be able to think 100% if I will keep relying on someone else. I needed to reach maximum stress and rely only on myself. That there is nobody else to help me out. This way, my brain suddenly unlocked and started working harder."
Hey guys! If you are trying to earn some money for your next business a little faster or you are struggling with your debt payments and you need to start making money ASAP, I found a way to make up to 1 000€ in basically 2 days as a side hustle and I would love to share it with you because it helped me through the worst time of my life. Of course, if you put in more work and time, you will be able to make more money. I highlighted “side hustle” because it's not a “get rich quick” method and it will not be easy. It is something that will help you raise capital faster or solve your short-term problems if you have too many payments on your plate. Take care!
Tell your readers a
little about yourself, where you grew up, where you live now, where you went to
school etc. Let them get to know the personal you.
I was born and raised in Houston County, GA. I have two older
siblings and am married to my beautiful wife, Shannon. We have a dog, Lilly,
who is the ‘best good girl’ in the world. We also have twelve nieces and
nephews.
I went to school at Warner Robins High and graduated in 2005. I attended and
graduated from Georgia Military College and Georgia College & State
University.
I have written several other books and comedic scripts for the stage. My
favorite authors are C. S. Lewis and Lois Lowry. I truly consider writing a
cathartic hobby.
Outside of writing, I enjoy performing in community theatre, particularly
comedies.
What inspired you to
author this book?
It took me a few years to finish my debut novel, The Canvas
Adventures. I wanted to write something that was both timely and timeless.
Meaning, I wanted to write about bullying, as I feel we’ve seen a recent rise in
social media harassment. However, bullying isn’t new. I also wanted to write a
book that helped someone overcome that type of abuse. Writing a book like that
takes time and, in my case, about three years!
Where did you get the
inspiration for your book’s cover?
I told my designer I wanted something that looked like the
classic books I remembered reading when I was younger. I wanted a truly
original piece. I didn’t want a stock image. The saying “you can’t judge a book
by its cover” is not true. If a book doesn’t have a captivating image, you’ve
already lost their interest-no matter how great the contents are inside.
Who has been the most
significant influence on you personally and as a writer?
Personally-my maternal grandfather. He never met a stranger. He
loved life, and others loved him, too. I like to think I inherited his best
traits.
As a writer, I would say my second-grade teacher. My teacher had us write daily
in ‘reading logs’ and encouraged us to write freely. I loved this part of the
school day. I remember one day, she touched my shoulder, looked at what I wrote,
and said, “You’ll be a writer one day.” That has always stuck with me!
What were the struggles or
obstacles you had to overcome to get this book written?
Any writer will tell you that writer's block is the first thing
that always gets in the way of finishing a good story. The trick is to not
force yourself to finish. You sometimes need to take a break. That may be an
hour, a week, a month, or longer. Don’t’ rush the process just to finish. You
want to provide the best product. You readers deserve your best!
Tell your readers about
your book.
The Canvas Adventures takes the main
character, 12-year-old Gabriel, on an unexpected journey. He is literally
pushed into a magical oil canvas painting and transported into an unfamiliar
world. It’s written in a way for children who may struggle to find their place
or niche can relate to and learn from in a captivating way.
My target audience is YA readers who enjoy stories filled with
relatable characters. I like my target audience to know that they are capable
of anything! I like to write characters people know, characters people hate,
ones they root for, and ones who have struggles, just like all of us.
What do you consider your
greatest success in life?
Understanding that despite the fact I may be different, I’m
loved. I’m loved for who I am. I know that doesn’t sound like a success.
However, many people go through life knowing others are loved. But if you ask
them, “How about you? Are you loved?” That’s a different story. Some people
will never understand that not only are they capable of being loved, but they
are capable of loving others. My success in life is recognizing those things
and helping others see it themselves.
What one unique thing
sets you apart from other writers in your genre?
My novel is for everyone! I never sought out to write a book for
children with autism. However, I have found that several of my readers are on
the spectrum. It’s a blessing to hear, “My child loved your book. He couldn’t
put it down.” I’ve also heard, “My child felt different until he realized that
being different isn’t bad. Your book showed him that he’s loved and capable of
loving.” I love those moments!
Tell your readers a little about yourself, where you grew up,
where you live now, where you went to school etc. Let them get to know the
personal you.
I grew up in a tiny
village in Northern Italy called Desenzano. I was a lacustrine creature for
most of my childhood until I started travelling around Europe and lived in
Austria, Cambridge, and Peterborough before establishing myself in London,
where I’ve been for the last 5 years. The common denominator of all my
peregrinations has always been writing. I started venturing out into
competitions back in 2007, back in Italy, where I was published in several
anthologies such as “Il Suono Del Silenzio,” “I Pensieri Della Buonanotte,” “La
Donna.” In 2019 I published my first collection of poems in English, called “Japanese
Tosa,” followed by “Confessions of A Pregnant Man,” and now – finally, “Incubi &
Succubi!” In the meantime, I have been lucky enough to have walked onto
different stages in London, like Flo vortex, Paper Tiger, Poetical Word. My
poems have been chosen to be part of national and international webzines,
magazines, podcasts, and installations. It has been fantastic to see my verses
breezing and rippling, travelling the world from USA, Canada, Ireland, Brazil,
and India! They have seen places I haven’t been yet, and this is sensational!
As a foreign author, I believe I’ve had an enormous privilege to have my heart
aligned with a smoldering desire to experiment with words and sounds I didn’t
master from the beginning. It’s been a work-in-progress, always trying to exude
my visions without losing them in translation. I’ve been wrestling with the
perpetual typos of my soul - trying to let myself go the call of inspiration,
hoping it wouldn’t be a Svengali! And I must admit, this has been the bit I’ve
always treasured, especially because I love languages and read and write in
English, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese.
What inspired you to author this book?
My book was born in the midst of the Pandemic,
it would simply be my journal when everything was deeply uncertain, and
everyone was sculpting an alternative reality whilst stuck in their own
quotidianly. If the only way out was through, I had no choice but to follow the diagonal way and let my thoughts metamorphose and take over. I remembered
being thunderstruck by a book by Craig Yoe called “Sexology.” The story of the
demons called Incubi & Succubi that nightly flirt with us got me
molecularly connected to the dreams and nightmares that my brain was propelling
non-stop. I was writing every day, and my ideas would get lost in recipes,
appointment reminders, and even toilet paper, so I decided to note them down in a
notebook to monitor those unpredictable waveforms - a sort of dram journal for
those visions that I couldn’t escape. My third collection blossomed like this
as a potential answer to all those questions swarming around my head. How can
we shape our minds to escape the savagery of these dark times? How can we train
our imagination to create alternatives? How can we discipline our spirit to
enjoy these moments of pleasure?
Where did
you get the inspiration for your book’s cover?
When the book was concluded and an author
feels the endpoint, somehow it was amazingly liberating! I remember texting my
sister, asking her to create its book, and giving her carte blanche. We spent a
lot of time talking about shortcomings and fears, panicking that COVID would be
the final stage of the concept of humanity we had known. Was it all about to
end? What would be a great season finale if not having a creature out there
with my poems and her illustration? That felt right, and one week after our
phone conversation, she sent me this cover, which is deeply inspired by an oil
painting by Swiss artist Henry Fuseli called “The Nightmare.” I wanted the
demon to be rigorously crouched on her naked body - to show vulnerability and the
beauty of the human body exposed and revealed, fragile and compact, probably
mutated into something else forever after two years of virus and variations.
Who has
been the most significant influence on you personally and as a writer?
Reading! I have always been
in love with poetry because of its anarchic nature, its power to evoke without
revealing, steering philosophy into spirituality, and the perfect connection paving
the way for understanding. I have always loved reading so much; the meaning of
life per se has been played through the electric amplification of all the
essays I’ve devoured with gusto! I wouldn’t be the person I am if I hadn’t
spent most of my afternoons reading Melville, Emily Dickinson, Montale, Alda
Merini, Antonia Pozzi, Poe, Tolkien, Aldo Busi, Salinas, Saramago, and so on.
They planted the seed of doubt in my head. I have dragged this uncertainty
forward, creating my gossamer spiderweb of beauty through essays, biographies,
and horror books. Before the pandemic, I also attended spoken word venues in
the last few years. It was generally surprising to get inundated by so much
talent and many variations of poetry! I found myself in the wrong place all the
time, but that would teach me a lot about the endless formulas people would
embrace to convey their artistic expression. Even if I didn’t always appreciate
the poets on the stage, I would always come back enriched and questioned, and
that’s something I love! Also, Love! I’m an advocate of this feeling, and I’m incredibly
passionate about what I do. I feel, so a shoutout to my boyfriend. He is a constant
source of inspiration for me.
What were
your struggles or obstacles you had to overcome to get this book written?
I can’t remember a specific
challenge with the writing process - if not the usual chaotic input that would
lead me to throw up thoughts everywhere (but later on, I grouped them all and
identified a fil rouge for a concept poetry collection). An obstacle was
definitely when my previous publishing house demanded to change the cover
because it would contravene the code of conduct. I got very hurt by that
decision! I couldn’t negotiate the cover, not only because it was my sister’s
hard work but also because I loved it, but mostly because it would be a medieval way
to reiterate that female bodies can’t be shown, and we are fed up with this
witch purge! So, I took it on the chin and walked elsewhere, even if I knew
this would mean waiting for 6 months to find the right one again that would
believe in my work. It worked out, and I’m glad I stuck to my decision.
It's hard to describe your
own work, but borrowing the words of my publisher, “This is a work that
rejuvenates the depleted, those demons feeding on you and haunting you. So far,
I have received some lovely feedback, with people saying things like, “His imagery
is profoundly inspired and at times pretty awkward, even when he veers away
from grammar rules and opts for prosaic text. His guttural poetry is certainly
not for everyone,” or “There is a dark subtext that rubs shoulders with a
quirky sense of humor and some hopeless romanticism. Highly recommended.”
I like to think that
everyone can relate to my work. Still, if I had to identify a potential target,
maybe I would say the outcasts, the so-called minorities. Definitely, the
LGBQT+ community, people who have crossed similar paths or they have found
themselves unprotected by our society.
What do
you consider your greatest success in life?
I’m happy that three different publishing houses supported my publication and believed in my talent. I would have never considered bending the rules and submitting my work to a vanity press (and sadly, this is more and more common as a practice by emerging writers) because it wouldn’t have made sense for what I was trying to achieve, which is a connection with a potential audience. My biggest success has been overcoming my paranoia and insecurities and letting it go, even when It’s not perfect or immaculate. It’s still what I am to the
purest form.
What one
unique thing sets you apart from other writers in your genre?
It’s tough to answer this
question - especially without falling off into a narcissistic statement! But
what I truly believe and can guarantee from my end is that everything I write
doesn’t aim to fit anywhere specific or to please anyone or any previous
agreement. I write because I can’t live without tracking my steps and fueling
my imagination; my existence would be meaningless if I didn’t aspire to
understand why I am here and what I’m destined to do. Having toured many poetic
nights, I can say that this would already be something setting me apart from
many other authors, who I don’t believe are fully honest when they either write
or perform. Their attention would be addressed to the applause or recognition.
Luckily, I have never worried about taming my verses beforehand to tailor their
echo to people’s reactions.
"He only wanted his daughter back!"
"After the accidental death of Jake's oldest daughter and wife, Jake's only daughter Leah, has been abducted by human traffickers and is being sold to the Cartel. Jake's experience in martial arts, sets out with little clues in hand, and a kali stick in the other."
Rescue is a 6 Award Winning film produced by AJLO Productions
Filmed in Arizona
.
This indie action film is not based on a true story or case, however, child abductions, kidnappings, exploitations, and human trafficking are real and happen every day. This film will help bring awareness to the ongoing real crisis of human trafficking. If you see something, say something!
Tell me a little about
yourself, where you grew up, where you live now, where you went to school etc.
Let them get to know the personal you.
Alexa Lohman
(daughter of Jason and Kimberly Lohman) has been in theater since age 7. At age
10, she got the main role as Sarah in the movie Dream Round, and she has been in a few other films since then. Alexa and her parents live in Mesa Arizona
and Alexa, also being a native-born in Arizona. In the year 2018, Alexa wanted to
do her own YouTube show called "Alexa Big Hands" which was an improv
comedy that she performed well in. Her parents helped her with creating her
YouTube show. Sometime later, Alexa asked her parents if they could be part of
her team in the filmmaking business. Both parents were more than happy to help
create what is known today as AJLO Productions, (Alexa Jade Lohman
Productions). Jason turned up the gears and studied directing, and producing and
even became very proficient in editing. He now creates not only films but also
commercials for customers. Jason even helped produce a few other films with
other producers along theway.
What inspired you to make this film?
In 2019, I
(producer and director of Rescue), saw a news article relating to a
child abduction/trafficking bust in Mesa, Arizona. This scenario haunted me as
I have a young daughter (Alexa Lohman). Between my daughter being of a young
age, and this crime hitting close to home, I wanted to help bring awareness of
how easily a young girl, or child, can be abducted in the blink of an eye. My wife
Kim and I decided to write our first movie script called Rescue.
Where did you get the inspiration for your film’s poster?
Our movie poster
was inspired by the plot of the script. The vision behind the poster was
knowing that Alexa would be playing Leah, who would be abducted and then
brought to the desert at a rendezvous point to be sold to the cartel. The
father "Jake", played by Jason Lohman, is on the trail of the
traffickers and fights for her back in the desert. The poster is a great visual
for such a rescue.
Who has been the most significant influence on you personally and as a screenwriter?
Watching Alexa's'
acting career over the years was a great influence for Jason to spearhead the
filmmaking arena. Jason loves producing films with his wife, and now Alexa.
What were your struggles or obstacles you had to overcome to get this film made?
Our film Rescue,
being our first indie film, had its up and downs. What normally takes only a
few weeks with a good budget by most Hollywood studios, took us several months
with a low budget. However, we made sure that all of our crew and actors who
helped out were paid fully the day they had worked. We do not want to be those
type of producers who tell cast and crew that will only get paid on deferred
pay. That's not good practice as a business owner.
Tell me about your film.
Jason Lohman
plays Jake, the father, and his daughter Alexa Lohman plays Leah in the film, Rescue.
Following the loss of Jake’s wife and oldest daughter to a tragic accident,
Leah and Jake are trying to come to grips with their new life. It takes a darker
turn when Leah is abducted from the park, in broad daylight.
Jake gets word
that Leah has been abducted, which sets Jake on a tumultuous path to get to
Leah before Leah is lost forever. Knowing every second counts, Jake, being
trained in martial arts, and an ex-vet combat soldier, is now instinctively in
pursuit. His will and determination would not falter until he finds his
daughter in the possession of the kidnappers as they are selling her to the
cartel.
This film does
not show any killings. The reason for this is found in an earlier scene when
Leah (played by Alexa Lohman) asked her dad, Jake, if he ever killed anybody
while he was in the war. She went on and
makes her dad promise her to not ever kill again for any reason. Jake makes a
promise he will not kill anyone. However later in the film when Jake realizes
she is kidnapped, his urge is to go and badly hurt the kidnappers, but he
maintains that urge to a minimum and only maims or knocks them out while
rescuing his daughter. Closer to the end of the film Leah asks her dad if they
are dead, he states back to her he had made a promise not to do anykilling.
Who is your target audience, and why?
This film has a
touch of awareness element to it. Human kidnappers/traffickers kidnapped a girl
and want to sell her. The kidnappers have connections to a seller who happen to
be the cartel. This is an action/drama film. Not only is the father fighting
the kidnappers, but he also comes toe to toe with the cartel later. The target
audience I say would be parents, grandparents, mature kids, or anyone who
either already appreciates the seriousness of trafficking and abductions, or
anyone who possibly is not yet aware of the magnitude of this problem. In
addition, on a lighter note, it is for anyone who loves a good action film
about a dad on a quest to saving his daughter.
What do you consider your greatest success in life?
Coming from a
background of having a few successful businesses in past times, I would say
joining forces with Alexa and her inspirational idea to create AJLO
Productions. Out of all business endeavors, Kim and I have ever done, we
consider AJLO Productions to be the most thrilling and entertaining endeavor we
have ever done. "Entertaining" no punintended.
What one unique thing sets you apart from other writers in your genre?
The unique thing
that I believe sets our film apart from other indie action films is that while
in the film festival circuits, it has won many awards. This was a huge surprise
to us. I never imagined a low budget indie film like ours would receive so much
recognition, but it did. I just noticed as well that the ratings on its IMDb
page are also above our expectations. That is some good stuff there!
The biggest mystery is the relationship between a man and a woman. Oh my. I don't know about you, but I don't think I will ever fully grasp the differences. However, today's BOOK OF THE DAY, "It's in Their DNA: What and Why Men and Women Do Not Ask and Do Not Answer" by Dr. Owen Watson, is remarkable and really gave me insight. If you are in a relationship, or looking to find one, you need this book. Stop asking the "What ifs" or saying, "If I only knew." This book does it for you. Order your copy today.
How many times have you said or thought, “I wish I had known…” about your mate? Probably more times than can be counted. Well, join the rest of us in the boat who have been or are in serious relationships. We’d hoped that the waters traveled would be smooth sailing before being unexpectedly hit with tumultuous waves. Why unexpectedly? Because we were so encapsulated by the boat in the calm waters stationed at the dock, we didn’t bother checking the forecast of what lay ahead. Much like a relationship, we see, we like, we commit. What we don’t do is thoroughly investigate before setting sail. No need to fret. In It’s in Their DNA: What and Why Men and Women Do Not Ask and Do Not Answer, Dr. Watson provides a compilation of questions and answers to help us learn and understand our mates.
Now more than ever, many have become apprehensive of pursuing relationships leading to marriage, partly because of the misconception that it isn’t worth it. Nothing can be further from the truth! What makes a relationship worthwhile is the work that is built upon with a potential lifetime partner – creating something special based not only on love but in-depth knowledge and understanding of one another. That is a great feat and testament to others!
It’s in Their DNA: What and Why Men and Women Do Not Ask and Do Not Answer reminds us that putting God’s word into action produces promising results. His Love illustrated in scriptures, keeps us on track—and best of all, it’s perfect for guiding our relationships through the seas of life. No more feeling unequipped in a relationship when we can turn the pages for understanding and believe God for the best to come!
Having faithfully and honorably served 29 years in the U.S. Navy and being a veteran of both the Gulf War and the Global War on Terrorism, Owen is now a retired Navy Sailor and a Christian faith-based author from Newport News, Virginia. Sharing the gospel through storytelling and self-help books for inspiring others is his passion. As he readily communicates the revelatory doctrine of Scripture to readers, Owen’s love of studying the Bible is apparent as God’s word is entwined throughout his writings. With zeal and sharpness, Owen inspires others to find purpose and fully live life as intended by God. Believing that everyone should have a place to rest their heads and lessen their worries about life.
Dr. Watson’s philosophy for living an abundant life is to always be willing to turn the page of your current situation as a step toward getting where you wish to be, or, better yet, where God would have you to be.
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