Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Guest Post from author MJ Kane

Have You Experienced Your Butterfly Moment?

A butterfly moment is an experience that challenges you to step outside of the box. It’s the life changing event you suffer through, unsure of what life will be like in the end. It’s the fear or losing everything if you fail, and forces you to dig deep inside and find the will to survive. It can be mental, physical, personal, or job related. Either way, it challenges you to reevaluate what is important in your life. It challenges you to become a better person, and in some cases, more than you ever thought you’d be.
My butterfly moment came in 2006 when I survived two weeks of being hospitalized in ICU. At the age of 31, I suffered a stroke that left one half of my body paralyzed for several days, and several more strokes while in the hospital. I had short term memory loss and could barely speak. It took months to train myself to write again, let alone speak a coherent thought. It’s been eight years since that day, the day I entered my own cocoon. Yet, when I tell people about my experience and how I had to fight to recover, they look at me as if I’m making it all up. No, I don’t harbor the physical signs of someone who has suffered a stroke, but believe me, it happened, and I survived, emerged from the experience a changed woman. As a result, I realized we never know what people go through in their lives, what past experiences have motivated them to make the decisions they do, even at the risk of hurting themselves in the end.
Realizing this is what inspired me to write The Butterfly Memoirs.
Butterflies symbolize evolving from the ordinary – a caterpillar- into something more beautiful – a butterfly. And just like the butterfly, my characters, both the women and men, start their stories living ordinary lives. They have wishes, dreams, and the desire to become more. Then one day, they are challenged, put to the test, and forced to look deep into themselves and discover who they are and what they are willing to do to succeed. And then one day, they emerge, changed….a butterfly. They’ve found their happy ending.
If you haven’t read The Butterfly Memoirs Series, visit my blog and learn about the characters and their stories. Check out the Free Read sample chapters, deleted scenes, and Short Stores that pick up where the novels have ended.
Fall in love with a Butterfly Memoir…Reality Romance and a bit more…

  Look for the The Butterfly Memoirs Series and the latest release, Lonely Heart!
Instead of planning her wedding, Kaitlyn Rodgers is facing motherhood alone, the pressures of a new job, and caring for her rebellious younger sister. What should have been the happiest time of her life turns into one stressful event after another.

After watching his father struggle to raise a family by himself, auto mechanic Antonio Rodriguez refuses to follow his father’s footstepseven if it means a lifetime of loneliness.

When Kaitlyn’s car breaks down, though, Antonio goes beyond auto repairs to take care of her needs. An unexpected friendship begins, allowing them a glimpse of happinessuntil the father of Kaitlyn’s child returns, ready to offer her marriage and a future. But at what cost?

M.J. is giving away an ebook copy of Lonely Heart! Enter the Rafflecopter contest for your chance to win! Contest ends April 1st!
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About the Author:
M.J. Kane stumbled into writing. An avid reader, this stay at home mom never lost the overactive imagination of an only child. As an adult she made up stories, though never shared them, to keep herself entertained. It wasn’t until surviving a traumatic medical incident in 2006 that she found a reason to let the characters inhabiting her imagination free.  Upon the suggestion of her husband, she commandeered his laptop and allowed the characters to take life. It was that, or look over her shoulder for men caring a purple strait jacket. And the rest, as they say, is history.

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