My God and Me Blog Tour - Day One

My God and Me Blog Tour

LaShawnda Jones is the publisher and author of Jazzy Media LLC. Her latest publication, My God and Me: Listening, Learning and Growing on My Journey is full of inspiration and testimony of personal growth.

Jazzy Media’s early publications brought local recognition to LaShawnda Jones’ work and requests for speaking engagements poured in. In 2004, she began facilitating body image and self-esteem workshops. Over the years, she has facilitated workshop discussions on the effects of family, friend, media and societal influences on our body image, self-esteem. She combines all that and more in My God and Me as she addresses, explores and strengthens her and her readers’ identity in Christ.

List your published books.

I self-published two editions of VoLux Full-Figured Calendar, two volumes of poetry titled Fantasies: A Metamorphosis of Sexual Attraction and Clichés: A Life in Verse. I am a contributing author in Go, Tell Michelle. And my current work, the reason for this interview is My God and Me: Listening, Learning and Growing on My Journey.

Which book did you find the hardest to birth?

Hard? You have to define hard….(smiling) The words and the images were in me. Each work was a natural evolution for me. I just wrote was on my heart and mind. The birthing wasn’t really hard. Rather effortless. The sharing has been more difficult. I’ve completely left myself open and vulnerable.  

Which book is your current favorite?

My God and Me is my favorite. It’s a summation of everything in my life. All my other publications are rolled up into the storytelling. My journey to those efforts were part of my journey to God and to myself, which is the story told in My God and Me: Listening, Learning and Growing on My Journey.

How would you describe your writing style?

Conversational. I write with the hope and expectation of receiving feedback. To that end, I write as if my audience is seated right in front of me.

Do you listen to music while you write? If so, what kind?

I write best in complete silence, except for the natural noise in a particular environment. However, once I get going I tune out even those noises.

Tell us anything about you as a writer that you think might be interesting or unusual.

I’m not as interested in making money as I am in sharing my message. I didn’t go through all my trials for nothing. Someone needs to hear how I’ve not only gotten through and overcome but how I continue to florish. My writing is my voice. In this way I will continue to speak until I’m told to pipe down. 

What advice do you have for aspiring writers?

Write! That was the best advice I ever received. With the exception of my calendar each of my publications have been compilations of previous work I had written as individual pieces with no thoughts towards publication. With both of the poetry books and My God and Me I looked up one day and said, “Wow! I have enough material for a book!”

Writers are often encouraged to write what they know. Have you found that to be the case with your writing?

Yes and no. I absolutely write about what I know. But writing is about embellishing. To embellish, you need imagination. And what you imagine isn’t necessarily your physical reality. It’s better. I can be effusive in speech – rarely. However, I am very effusive in my writing. I have a flair with the written word that I don’t use in my regular speech. 

About the Book

Relationships change with the tide of life. When your relationships ebb more than flow, do you find yourself asking, “Were my dying relationships ever real relationships? Are the people who maintain contact, but with whom there is no connection, worth holding on to? Should I expect a person’s presence in my life to equal dependency in my time of need? Does the quality of interaction determine the level of importance?”

These questions and many more flow through the interactions shared in My God and Me: Listening, Learning and Growing on My Journey.

LaShawnda Jones Read an Excerpt

View the blog tour schedule and read an excerpt at http://bit.ly/MyGodandMe.