“Lights, Camera, Take Action: 52 weeks to a better life, one movie at a time” is Joe Williams Nelson’s debut book. This title is a self help book designed to help readers achieve their “best life now”. The author is a premiere life coach and mogul who has dedicated her life to helping others achieve success in life. Her book is a unique combination of good cinema review and excellent advice to help readers “direct” their best life yet. This title is available on Amazon. To purchase your copy of this book, click here.
How long have you been writing?
I have been writing creatively since meeting my best friend in elementary school. Academics were not valued in my family. So it goes without saying that my exposure to language arts was limited to school. When I went to the library, I checked out cookbooks. After meeting Andrea Jamison, I learned that writing as an art form was a thing, and I was good at it. I’d memorized poems and passages for school, but I wrote my first poem when I was 13 and have never stopped. So the official answer is 30 years now.
What is your most recent literary/artistic project?
I am presently collecting the movies, action steps, and life lessons for the sequel to my book, Lights, Camera, Take Action. In it I teach my readers how to take their life from good to great, one movie at a time. That’s my thing, movie coaching. I fell in love with movies those first twelve years of my life and now I get to combine everything I love and am passionate about into written word for the masses. In order for my words to ring true for my readers they have to be truly integrated by me. So I literally and figuratively put blood, sweat, and/or tears into every lesson and therefore page. Now that is art.
What inspires you to write?
Sanity
Who’s your favorite author and why?
I have two. John Steinbeck makes me a better black woman. That may sound strange, but I am not black enough to identify with the struggles of the women of Morrison, Angelou, and Walker’s novels though I enjoyed reading them. When I read East of Edenfor The Oprah’s Book Club, I was finally able to identify with a universal struggle that exists for us humans here on earth. Universal struggle is a big part of the work I do as a Spiritual Life Coach and now writer. Erma Bombeck is my second favorite author. She has made me a better wife and mother through her humorous works. When I discovered her books, I was a woman struggling to get a handle on the huge responsibility that is motherhood. She helped me to know that things that were stressing me in the moment would be hilarious later. She helped me make it to later.
What advice can you give to other authors or writers?
The best advice I have is the gift Andrea gave me three decades ago which is to believe that your work has value. Everything will not be great, or good, or even marketable, but it still has value. As independent authors we have qualified ourselves and that takes moxie, but self-validation can also breed insecurity and self-doubt in our weaker moments. Remember that your writing is not meant to go with you to the grave. Writing is an art form. Art is meant to live more lifetimes than its creator. The job of art is to be living proof that we are ever connected to God. That is why art must exist beyond its creator to touch as many lives as possible. Write like life depends on it, because it does.
Where can readers go to find out more information about you or your work?
My website will be live soon if I get the domain names I like. Readers can find me there sharing more of my movie coaching, blogging, poems, and opinions. You can Google me and find me all over social media and the Internet. I am from the west side of Chicago. Though I consider myself a West Side Success Story, I am always up to thangs [sic].
Updated: You can read more about this author at: http://joewilliams-nelson.com/