I sat down yesterday to write a blog post. As some of you know, I retired this blog a few months ago when I realised that my grieving process had taken a turn and that I had found real purpose and joy in my writing. I decided to direct the limited spare time I have to focus all my efforts and energy into creating the book I promised Romy I would write.
Sitting down and writing a book caused me to take a real look at who and what I am, which of course also showed me how much has changed in me since Romy died. However, I am also surprised to find that some things have not changed. I have written often about Romy’s role in helping both Darius and I to realise our truth; our purpose in life, but I have struggled with coming clean with mine.
My truth involves sharing some aspects of my life that some of you – even some of you who know me pretty well – may not know. To put it bluntly, for as much of my life as I can remember I have seen, heard and felt what some people call The Other Side. I call it Spirit. I have spent years sitting in psychic development circles, attending courses and workshops in order to advance my skills in this area but I have never worked with it professionally, preferring it to keep a back seat in my life and using it only from time to time when I feel it’s appropriate.
After Romy died, I was reintroduced to this part of my life in a big way as I experienced more and more occurrences that I couldn’t reasonably explain. Alongside this I found that my belief in an afterlife grew, and the more I explored this belief, the easier my grief felt to bear. In this way, Romy has helped me to realise my purpose in life as I begin to explore the possibility of going back to my training and working with mediumship on a professional basis. All of this is what I am writing about. I have now written enough to make a book and it’s beginning to look possible that I may get it published.
However, I need some help.
I am primed to send my precious book out to publishers. If you know anything about the world of publishing you will know that these days, it is essential to have a ‘platform’. This means that, before you approach major publishers with your work, you need to show them that you have used social media to increase your exposure and therefore guarantee your ability to sell your book to the world at large.
Yesterday – Tuesday 18th July 2017 – marked three years since I sat in that awful ward with Romy, begging her not to leave us and promising her that I would write about her, promising her that she would leave her mark on the world. Rather than writing about the mind numbing pain that yet another anniversary brings, I am using that energy, in the spirit of all that I write about, to ask you to help me to build my platform.
Several months ago, I told you about my intention to raise £1,000 for each of the two hospitals that treated Romy. I asked for your help in raising that £2,000 and was blown away by the response. Not only did I exceed my target amounts for both hospitals, I raised it within around ten days, causing JustGiving to send me an email telling me that I was in the top 10% of all fundraisers on their site in the whole of 2016!
I started thinking: if our friends, and their friends, and various other people they come into contact with, have found it in themselves to help us to raise £2,000 in less than ten days, then how far could I get to in reaching 5,000 ‘Likes’ on my Facebook author page? That’s the magic number folks: 5,000 ‘Likes’. I’m not supposing I can reach that goal but because this is for my daughter, I’m going to put myself out there and hope that I come close.
The page I am inviting you to ‘Like’/’Share’ is ‘Ali Norell Author’, NOT my personal Facebook page. To make it really easy for you, here’s a link:
Let me be clear here: if you are reading this because you know me well and you love me but you just don’t buy into all this afterlife/spirit communication stuff, no problem. Please, please do not feel obliged to ‘Like’ anything! I like you all well enough not to be bombarding you with spiritual hocus pocus if it’s just not your bag. However, if you happen to have one or two ‘out there’ friends who might be interested in reading a book in that genre, please share it with them. Please share it with any random Facebook groups you happen to know who might find it interesting, relevant or useful. Please share the hell out of it if you love me, because it’s really important to me.
This will give me the best chance possible of getting my book out there. The book that I promised my daughter I would write, for her, on the night of 17th July 2014.
It will give me untold pleasure to know that something this big is building in Romy’s name.
Thank you my friends.
Remembering Romy 