I am Jan Krause Greene. I explore the vast capacity of the human heart as a novelist, poet and storyteller. My first novel was released in August of 2013. I currently have three other works in progress.
Thought I would share this. Author and playwright, Alex Clarke interviewed me for her blog. You should check out her other blogs. She is a very fascinating person!
https://alexclarkewriterdotme.wordpress.com/2014/09/15/talking-writing-scheduals-with-jan-krause-greene-author-of-i-call-myself-earth-girl/
Recently, I was asked by Danielle Boonstra to participate in the IC Publishing Summer Blog Tour in order to share my insight into the Writing Process. I think it is so interesting to read about the unique ways writers go about our craft and I am happy to share my own approach in hopes that it might be encouraging to others who find it challenging to commit to a regular writing routine.
I’d also like to give a shout-out to Sheri Andrunyk.
Sheri is the founder of I C Publishing (sponsor for this blog tour) and the I C Bookstore, entrepreneur expert, and author of Working From Home & Making It Work and Hearts Linked by Courage. She is extremely passionate about providing more choices and high level support to other writers, business professionals, wellness coaches, and spiritual mentors.
How Do You Start Your Writing Projects?
In reality, my projects usually find me before I find them. Back when I had a newspaper column with a deadline I started writing about an hour or two before deadline, but the idea had probably been marinating in my subconscious for a few days. When I sat down to write, the words just flowed, almost magically, it seemed to me. It was the easiest kind of writing I have ever done. Comparing that to my writing now, I have to admit that I think much of the ease of the process came from having a deadline to meet.
Now I don't have a deadline and it takes me a lot longer to get started. The ideas grab me in the least expected places and then they nag me to write about them. I might be going for a walk and notice something about a tree that reminds me of something about life in general and I say to myself, "I should write a blog about that."
For the rest of the walk, I keep hoping that I don't forget this insight. If I have my mobile phone with me I usually call my land line and leave myself a message. If my husband (poor patient man!) listens to the voice mails before I do, he is likely to hear me ruminating about this new idea. Not in just one message or two - more than likely, there will be three or four!
By the time I get home, however, the reality of my daily life in my four-generation household sets in. There are grandchildren to play with and my almost 99-year-old mother to care for. So I put off writing the blog. But, if the idea is good and really does resonate with me, it will remain a nagging presence in the back of my mind. It is almost as if it is saying to me, "If you don't sit down and write this soon, I am going to keep interfering with all your other thoughts. So get to it!"
That, of course, should be enough to get me to the computer and it usually does. But once I sit down to write I am likely to be waylaid by email, Facebook, etc. Usually, I end up writing the blog late at night on the day before I have a really busy schedule. It is almost as if knowing that the next day won't provide any time for writing is what gets my creative juices flowing. As you can see, I am easily distracted from what I intend to do and I write best under pressure, which is why the writing process for my novel required me to literally get away from my family, friends and online life for a period of intensive writing.
Writing my novel ~
When I finally decided to fulfill my lifelong dream of writing "the great American novel" I decided to turn my allotted week in November of 2010 in my parents' Newport timeshare into a writing week. My husband was my only companion. He spent the days sight-seeing, visiting museums, reading, and eating (all things I really love to do with him!) and I was able to concentrate completely on writing the novel from 8 a.m. until about 6 p.m each day. Then we would go out to dinner and I would talk about what I had written. This is where I Call Myself Earth Girl was born
The hours flew by. I felt as if I had been writing for two or three hours by the time 6 pm arrived. I had tons of energy and felt very happy during the entire week. I dreamed about the story almost every night. For me, this immersion was the perfect way to get started and I made so much progress that by the 7th day I had completed the first half of the book. By that time, I had also revised my goal from "the great American novel" to "a really compelling story."
How Do You Continue Your Writing Projects?
As you may have gathered from what I have already written, I am not very disciplined about making sure I have daily writing time. To be honest, I really want to change that. But in the recent past my writing projects have fit in when and where they can.
Blogs don't take me that long to write. I only need an hour or two from start to finish. I always have a backlog of ideas and topics so that is never a stumbling block. If I had the time, I could write three blogs a day and never run out of ideas. Some times this is very frustrating because I can't find the time to write about all the things I really want to explore through writing. I think it is important to emphasize that I really do mean "explore" because most writing for me is also a process of discovering more about how I think or feel.
With my novel, I needed another period of immersion to continue with the process. So a year after the first week, I spent another 7 days at the timeshare with my husband. I wrote from morning until dinner time and finished the book the night before we checked out. (We had a late dinner that night - a very celebratory one!) To be honest, I could have used more time, but I had a burning desire to finish this story and I did not want to wait another year to do so.
I would not actually advise other writers to use this process unless you can get your weeks of immersion much closer together. It can be very frustrating. I thought about the book on some level almost every day for the year between writing weeks. But I did not outline it or try to set up plot points. I did not want the year in between the writing sessions to interfere with the flow that I had while writing with intensity during my writing week.
Each day as I wrote I just let the words come. I did no revision during these two writing weeks. The story revealed itself to me and I simply tried to add details to support it and keep it coherent. Much of what I wrote actually surprised me. Writing the messages from the spirit in the story told me things about what I believe that I had never put in words before. I discovered a lot about myself while writing this book.
How Do You Finish Your Project?
I knew that my first draft needed revision and I knew I wanted to find a publisher. So, I spent my timeshare week the next year doing the revisions and looking for a publisher. Luckily I was able to complete both tasks during that week.The main reason I could find a publisher so quickly was because a friend told me about a publisher who could be queried online without the help of an agent. Once I had signed a contract, I spent time revising without the benefit of a week away. I managed to fit the revisions into my daily routine, wedged here and there between my family obligations. Of course, having a contract had the same affect as having a deadline. I knew I had to make steady progress to in order to submit the final manuscript. I completely changed the first chapter and even added a character who has turned out to be an important figure in the sequel.
All in all, it took me from November 2010 to November 2012 to write, revise, and find a publisher. From November 2012, until February 2013, I worked on revisions. The book was released in August of 2013. One of the things that held it up was how long it took me to settle on a cover. But I am glad I took the time - I love my cover! Actually, I love the whole book. So, despite the fact that it took so long, it was definitely worth the time and effort.
What’s One Challenge or Additional Tip That Our Collective Communities Could Benefit From?
Trust yourself!!
Trust the process of letting words flow. I know so many people who get stalled out in the writing process because they worry about being skilled enough, unique enough, interesting enough. My advice is just keep writing. You can always "fix" it after you have finished, but if you self-censor and self-criticize while you are writing, you may lose your authentic voice. If you are inspired to write, don't let self doubt stand in your way.
I do Finding Your Voice writing workshops with individuals and groups in order to help aspiring writers to find, or reclaim, their authentic voices.
Passing the Pen
And with that, I pass the pen to one of my favorite fellow writers, Kathleen O'Malley. I met Kathleen shortly after my book was released and I was immediately drawn to her warmth and insight. We have appeared together at various events talking about why and how we write. Check out her links and be sure to look for her post on July 16th. Check out her links and her post on July 16th!
Kathleen O'Malley, DC is passionate about transforming lives. She is an integrative wellness chiropractor, mentor to adolescent and young women and has authored two inspirational books - Messages from Within: Finding Meaning in Your Life Experiences and Messages from Children and What They Can Teach Grown-ups.
Find Kathleen on on Twitter @KOMalley and at her website.
Thanks for reading and following the IC Publishing Summer Blog Tour.
Jan Krause Greene is the author of I Call Myself Earth Girl, a novel which explores how a woman gradually opens herself to mystic wisdom when she discovers she is pregnant and is convinced that she conceived the baby in a dream. She is currently working on the sequel, as well as two other books. She also helps individuals embrace their authentic voices through Finding YOUR Voice Writing Workshops.
After Maya Angelou's death, I heard the replay of radio interview from 1986. She talked about how she became mute after she was raped as an eight-year-old child. To know that she chose to cloak herself in silence for years after the rape tells us how much the rape wounded her spirit. She revealed that as an adult, when something had upset her deeply, she was still drawn to protect herself again with that same silence. In other words, she wanted to hide her vulnerability by silencing her very voice.
Maya Angelou as a young child Photo from thesource.com
After hearing this, I wondered how choosing not to speak helped her. I think that she must have silenced her physical voice as a way to strengthen her inner voice; that as a child she knew instinctively that giving physical voice to the voice within means letting people know you. Your inner voice, after all, is what makes you who you are. When so much had been taken from her already, she was not willing to share that part of herself with anyone. The only way to keep it safe was silence. If one is going to survive in a world where a man will rape an eight-year-old, then one must make sure the inner voice is strong and sure and can not be taken away no matter what.
Angelou explained that she strengthened her inner voice by listening. She took in all the sounds in the world around her - sounds of work and sounds of play, speaking voices and voices raised in prayer, voices making music, instruments making music, sounds of joy and sounds of grief.
She did not just hear these sounds. She absorbed them into her being, resulting in her amazing speaking voice. But she also "listened" to words another way - through reading. She loved poetry. She copied it out of books. She read it as a form of companionship during her long self-imposed silence and she memorized it. But she never spoke it aloud until a beloved teacher convinced her to try when she was about 11 years old. The beauty of the poetry coming from her own lips broke the silence. She began to speak again.
She was strong enough to share her inner voice because she had been given access to the innermost thoughts of others through poetry. She had felt the deep connection one can feel to others' hearts and souls simply by reading the words they wrote. She realized that just as she had been moved to tears of sorrow, and of joy, by other people's words, they also could grieve and rejoice with her if she shared her words with them. When she freed her voice it grew powerful enough to move and inspire millions.
As a writer, this strikes a chord with me because most writers want to affect readers in the meaningful way that Angelou did. And, of course, writers are often known for their voice. Editors and publishers, we are told, want writers with a distinctive voice. We are advised that to be successful, we must have a strong voice. What does this really mean?
I think that in writing, as in life, the voice within wells up from the subconscious. We can try to develop a certain voice in our writing as if it is the same thing as tone or style. But it is neither of those.
A writer's voice, I believe, is that same private voice that Angelou protected with her silence. Just as she strengthened hers by listening and reading, writers can strengthen theirs in a variety of ways. But, here's the tricky part, a lot of that work happens without our really knowing it. In order to write with an authentic voice, writers need to spend some time really getting to really know themselves. This is one reason journaling is so helpful to writers.
A writer of fiction will not write about herself, but her "selfness" will always be in the story. It is what makes fiction authentic even though it is not a true story. A poet may write about himself, or about a bird, or a car, but the poet's selfness is always there in the poem. Your voice as a writer is the part of you that is reflected in the writing even though you are not in the poem, short story, or novel. It is your essence giving heart and soul to whatever you are writing.
Sometime writers work so hard on the craft of writing that they lose their voices. They judge, criticize, refine and revise too soon. Their authentic voices are lost before they have a chance to emerge. Many would-be writers give up because of this.
My advice is to take Ray Bradbury's advice when it comes to writing: "Jump off the cliff and build your wings on the way down."
Instead of searching for your voice, trust that it is there. Because it is. It is the ineffable thing that is filling you up inside as your heart beats madly and you hope against hope that your fragile, new found wings wing will keep you from falling.
As you learn to take flight, look around. You might just see me flapping my wings wildy trying to stay air bound yet again. See you in the sky!
Look on the Books page of this website for news about my already published book and my books in progress. Every so often I will be giving free books to people who come to this page, so check in now and then!
I CALL MYSELF EARTH GIRL (released August, 2013)
What if you discovered you were pregnant and you believed you conceived this child in a dream? What if you tried to end the pregnancy and failed? Gloria’s world is turned completely upside down when she discovers she is pregnant and she knows her husband can not be the baby’s father. Her recurring dreams about a young girl who calls herself Earth Girl initiate a quest for understanding that leads her to question the nature of time and the possibility of reincarnation. As she is exposed to mystic wisdom through the voice in her dreams, she learns not only about herself, but also the many facets of family love and acceptance. Her journey of self-discovery ultimately connects her to the future in a way that she could never have imagined.
I am currently working on two more novels and one true story.
Both novels have tentative titles – In Earth Girl’s Time is the sequel to I Call Myself Earth Girl, and The Valley of the Free People, a historical novel about St. Lucia.
The true story is about Michael Bardellini, a young man from Milford, MA who was the victim of a hit and run driver while riding his bike. His incredible determination to overcome his debilitating injuries and to live a life of meaning and purpose inspires me every day. I feel honored that he has chosen me to share his story.
I Call Myself Earth Girl has received some great reviews!
Check them out on my Amazon. com page using the tiny url above.
Here’s an excerpt from one of my recent reviews on Amazon.com:
“From the moment I picked this book up I could hardly put it down (but with three young kids, I had to – quite often). It is rare to find a combination of witty writing and gripping plot in a first novel, and it is not easy to turn spiritual themes into a fun and inspiring read. I call Myself Earth Girl does just that, and takes readers on a journey of discovery that keeps them on their toes until the very end. Highly recommended as a summer read, something to take on your vacation and to savour as you have time to reflect on life and what might be awaiting beyond it. Inspiring, entertaining and thought provoking.” Daniela Norris
Some of the fun of having a blog is getting a chance to introduce and promote other authors. So without further ado, I'd like to introduce you to Renee Novelle. She is a woman with many talents -author, journalist, screenwriter and blogger. Not only that, she is amazingly prolific.
I asked her how she manages to get so many books out so quickly. Her answer:
I made a deal with the devil... Lol, no just kidding. I'm very focused when I write. And I think all my years in journalism provided a great lesson in writing tight prose on a tight deadline. It also helps that I have a short attention span. After two months or so I get bored and need to move on to the next story. I prefer to have a book completed before that happens or it may sit on my computer unfinished for years!
True to her word, she has a brand new book coming out this week. The Boyfriend List is a light, New Adult romance about friendship, trust, and learning to let go in order to embrace what real love can offer.
Here's a little Q&A with Renee:
Me: Is there a message you’re trying to get across the readers? What’s the one thing you want readers to think when they have finished your book
Renee: Providing entertainment is my primary goal for my readers. But after that, I would love for them to put down the book and look a life a little differently. Be a little happier, think a little deeper, question a little more. That’s the beauty in a book that you can’t necessarily find in all other art forms.
Me: When did you know you wanted to write a book?
Renee: I’ve always loved writing, but it wasn’t until I was about 11 or 12 that I felt the need to write a full-length book. Since then, I’ve been obsessed with the idea.
I can't resist commenting! Obsessed for sure. In 2013, she released 3 books! Calculated, Driven and Reflections. I'm impressed. Very!
Me: Where’s your favorite place to write?
Renee: I write in my office most frequently, or as I’ve termed it, my writing cave. There I’m surrounded by my personal inspiration and things that have meaning to me, and it really gets my creative juices flowing.
Me: What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
Renee: Practice all the time! Write everything, at every opportunity. Jot down your ideas and hone your skill until it shines. I don’t think there’s any such thing as being the “perfect” writer, it’s all kind of a beautiful learning process, but always strive to make each work better than the last. And grow a thick skin because readers have lots of opinions.
Me: What’s one thing about the writing process that you think every writer should know?
Renee: That promotion takes WAY more work than I ever thought. But it’s a very necessary part, and can be really enjoyable once you start making contacts and developing relationships.
Again, I can't resist. Promotion does take tons of work. It was the biggest surprise for me as a new author....and developing relationships with other authors and bloggers is the pleasant reward for all the hard work of promotion.
Me: What’s your favorite part about the writing process?
Renee: I actually really enjoy the editing process. Writing that outline and skeleton draft can be brutal. But then cleaning it up, adding the detail, making the characters really come alive, that’s absolutely heaven.
Here are some ways to buy her brand new, hot-off-the-press book!
You can connect with Renee here. I am sure she would love to hear from you.
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/ReneeNovelle
Twitter - https://twitter.com/RS_Novelle
Goodreads - https://www.goodreads.com/RSNovelle
This week I was a guest blogger on B.C. Brown's Books site. Her home page says "Because weird is good...."
Not sure what that says about me, but I am open to all interpretations!
Here are a few excerpts, but please go to B.C's page and read the whole thing. Even better, please leave a comment there to show your appreciation to B.C. for sharing her blog.
Excerpts (don't look for continuity...these are just sentences picked out of the actual blog.
A funny thing happened to me last night. Funny as in strange or unexpected. Not "funny ha-ha" as my dad used to say.
So, there I was working hard at not thinking. The only problem is that when I work hard at something - no matter what it is, even relaxing - I end up wide awake. Last night was no different, except that I was wide awake and really angry.
I could literally feel the anger in my forehead....
I was filled with anger and I hated myself for it. Not because I am such a good and kind person and I knew the anger was mostly about feeling sorry for myself. Equally, not because some of the anger was justified and righteous and I was mad at myself for not expressing it to those who deserved to hear it.
And then something shifted. I decided to think about love. Not romantic love, but the other, bigger, broader kind of love - love of life, love of nature, love of the universe.
Yes, I do have a sort of love affair with the universe - all that space with stars and planets and energy and possibility that somehow brings people and ideas together and fuses their energy into something new.
Within minutes, I had a feeling that I have not had since my book was picked up by a publisher more than a year ago. I felt peace. Most particularly, I felt peace about the book and its potential readers...the people who would appreciate it would somehow find it. The message that I hope to spread would be heard by those who will respond to it.
It doesn't have to be a bestseller... It can simply exist. I can let it go out into the world without me. I can focus on the next thing I write, instead of trying so hard to promote this one book. I can let it do its own thing.
In a way that I can't really explain, a sleepless, angry night brought me insight and peace of mind. Sure, I hope people want to read my book. But I no longer need them to.
http://www.bcbrownbooks.blogspot.com/2014/01/guest-post-jan-krause-greene-i-call.html
Funny thing is I had no idea what I would write about when B.C. offered me a guest blog spot. I didn't think it would be about not worrying about how well my book does. I thought I would write some lofty words on what it means to be a writer. Yet, I ended up writing about not needing my book to sell.
Ironically, at the very same time that I was writing about not worrying about how the book does, I was also getting a lesson in how to promote it. B.C. provided me with a really simple, obvious, straightforward, no-gimmicks method. I can't believe I had overlooked it. She included a description of the book and she posted the buy links! And, guess what, sales picked up again! Genius.
So from now on, I will post them at the end of my blog too. Only makes sense, right? If someone, clicks on a link and buys the book, fantastic. If no one, does, that is not quite fantastic, but it is no longer something to lose sleep over!
Welcome to David Prosser! Let's see what he has to say today.
When I first started this blog, I said that my first novel had been accepted for publication. That was months ago, and my book is finally going to be "officially" released on August 30.
In honor of the official release, I will be sharing the entire first chapter tomorrow.
Here's a video trailer to whet your appetite.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AEW7f7n5a0
That's all for now.
Being a writer is sometimes described as lonely or isolating. In some ways, I suppose it can be both lonely and isolating, but that has never really been my experience as a writer. Perhaps, that is because I share almost everything I write, almost as soon as I write it. For me, writing is all about communicating and sharing with others. I feel the same way about reading. When I read something written by another person, I have a strong desire to talk to that person, especially if the writing touched me deeply. I used to write a newspaper column and that was the perfect forum for me because I knew people would see my column within the next 24 hours. Whether I knew who was reading it or not, I knew someone was reading it. Expressing my thoughts, feelings, reactions, or even my version of events with at least one other person was very satisfying to me.
Of course, I could have done the same by talking to a friend, or writing a letter, but knowing that I was writing for public consumption made me much more reflective. When I wrote a column I was always looking for the meaning of the experience, or the irony in it, or even just the funny ending. When I poured my heart out to a friend it was more random - a stream-of consciousness sharing of thoughts, feelings and experiences. If it had more emotion than a column, it probably also had less organization.
Recently, I wrote my first novel. 
Writing a novel was definitely more isolating than writing a column simply because a novel is so much longer and requires more sustained concentration. Still, I had the desire and the need to share it with others way before I even began looking for a publisher. I know that most novelists have early readers whose insights are invaluable to them. This was true for me too, but what was most valuable was knowing that there was someone out there who would read this way before it would be seen by the general public.
I guess as a writer I have a need for immediate gratification (just like I do as a dieter, a gardener, and anything else that takes more than 24 hours.). I am not good at waiting for feedback. I know this is a weakness and shows either a lack of discipline or a lack of maturity on my part, or maybe even both. Probably both.
So now I find my inpatient, immature, undisciplined self being challenged by the inevitability of the LONG WAIT. My publisher told me the book would be released at the end of August, but Amazon.com does its own thing. I was shocked and delighted to find it listed on Amazon as available for pre-order. (I may have to write a whole blog on the strange term "pre-order.") I allowed myself to believe the wait was already over.
The first 48 hours of pre-order status was amazingly fun! I told friends via Facebook and emails. Orders started rolling in, and for 48 hours the book was in the top 10 bestsellers in the Angel category on Amazon. It went up to number 3 for a few hours.
At number 5
It even had the status of Number 1 Hot New Release in the Angel category. It confused me a little because the book is not actually about angels, but it does have a character that could be an angel and it certainly could make a reader think about angels.
Now, 4 days later, the book has dropped to 63 in the Angel category. I knew that would happen after the initial flurry of orders from friends, but here's the hard part. People will not receive their copies until August. Books stores won't get copies until August. I won't get copies until August. So what can I do other than wait?
My son and his wife solved this problem for me. I don't have to sit around and wait. I can promote my book by driving! They had large car magnets made from images of the front and back cover of the book. I can now shamelessly promote my book every time I drive!
The shameless-self-promotion-mobile!
Just yesterday, I drove all away across Massachusetts, and when stuck in a long un-moving line of traffic on the Mass Pike I was secretly thinking what a great chance it was for people to see my car magnets. When I got off the Pike in Lee, I was again stopped in traffic. There was no one beside me, so I wasn't really thinking about who could see my car. But I should have been thinking about it, because the woman in the car behind me apparently could not see my car at all. She rear-ended me and lifted the back of my car off the ground. Apparently horrified to see what she had done, she backed up and my car slammed onto the ground. It all happened quickly and I was pretty shook up.
But when we exchanged information, she DID notice the magnets and I casually mentioned that she could pre-order the book on Amazon. After all, she had just rear-ended me. It seemed like the least she could do. Especially, since I have to take off my beautiful magnets now. When she rammed underneath my car, she broke the muffler and now I attract attention just by driving....negative attention. So, for the time being, the self-promotion-mobile will simply be the please-don't look-at-me-like-that-I-can't-stop-this noise-until-my-insurance-company-sends-out-an-adjuster-mobile.
The standard advice to writers is to write about what you know. I know the Boston Marathon.
Maybe I should say I knew it. Although, my memories from 46 years of the Marathon remain the same, the emotional impact of these memories is forever changed.
The marathon has been something amazing and special to me since the first time I saw it in 1967. I was a freshman at Boston College, up from my home state of Maryland. I had never even heard of it. But I loved watching it and I loved its history, going all the way back to 1897.
For so many New Englanders, the Boston Marathon was more than sport. It was a rite of spring; a cherished family day; a chance to stand with people you did not know and cheer on other people you did not know; to offer paper cups of water and sliced oranges as the runners passed by. It was a feel-good day.
Rain or shine, too cold or too hot, the runners came and so did the spectators. Every year I watched with tears as front runners sprinted by and those at the back of the pack struggled by. The crowds always cheered for both - awe in their voices for those in the lead and sincere words of encouragement for those in the back.
I always felt like the Boston Marathon was an example of people at their best. Their real best - not just their peak of physical performance - their best because it was, in many ways, about collaboration as much as competition; about striving as much as succeeding; about cheering on with appreciation as much as being cheered for; about celebrating the last as well as the first.
It was about the spectators as much as the runners. Running Boston just wouldn't be the same without the crowds and traditions. It was truly the most interactive of sporting events and many families built traditions around this special iconic Boston event.
It was about people coming together from all over the world to participate, and in a funny way, it was about people from the suburbs coming together with Bostonians to celebrate our "Bostonness."
Bostonians, for the most part, love Boston - its history, its crazy traffic patterns, its accent, its sports teams and its marathon. To us, "the Marathon." When we heard someone talk about "running Boston" it held a special meaning for us.
So how has it changed? What does it mean now?
It means even more than it did before. Until 2:51 on Monday afternoon, it represented a happy celebration of spring and sport, a chance for people to be at their best. Now it will always represent people at their worst, as well.
But here is what we can't forget. Whether there was one bomber or a dozen or even a hundred, there were more heroes than bombers. People rushed in to help. Others showed up at area hospitals to donate blood. Others opened their homes to those who couldn't get back into their hotels. People across the country are collecting money to help victims in whatever way possible.
None of this diminishes the horror of what happened. None of it makes up for the senseless loss of lives and limbs. None of it can restore the innocence so many children lost on this day.
No, the harm -and it is immense - can not be extinguished.
But the spirit of the Boston Marathon can not be extinguished either.
If the bombers thought that fear would prevail, they were wrong.
If they thought that hatred will overtake us, they were wrong.
If they thought that we will be convinced that the evil in the world is stronger than the good, they were wrong.
We can show them that they are wrong, and we must.
So from now on, be a little more loving to everyone, a little less fearful about everything, and embrace all that is good in the world. Hold tight to the good. Never let it go.
Finally, come to Boston for next year's Marathon. Run it. Walk it. Watch it. Just come.
We need you here.
