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Zoe Younger

~ Life Changing Journeys, Life changing Love

Zoe Younger

Tag Archives: thriver

Apologies for going Missing in Action…

05 Thursday May 2016

Posted by Zoetic Words in LIFE, LOVE, MY BOOKS, SHATTERED, THE WRITERS' LIFE, TORN

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"North and South", books, courage, Elizabeth Gaskell, friends, goals, Irish Australians, John Thornton, LIFE, loss, LOVE, Margaret Hale., Relationships, Richard Armitage, sailing, Survivors, thriver, victim, writing

Retirement crisis concept as a couple of adirondack chairs sinking in the ocean during a thunder storm as a metaphor for financial investment problems for retiring seniors who lost their savings or broken dreams symbol.

My humble apologies for neglecting you, my friends. Life has been all go and not much stop recently. Now, though, it’s time to get back into routine.

My work on “Shattered” has slowed to a crawl. This is Rosaleen’s story, a redemption story. She and Mary from “Torn” were childhood friends and I’m sorry to say that the Rosaleen of “Torn” was not the friend Mary knew back when. She had always wanted more… more money, more things, a higher position in social circles and she thought she had it all, until “Torn”. Now she must start again, from the bottom; and when I say from the bottom I mean much further and she’d have to dig!

I’m sorry to say that Rosaleen died in the first iteration of “Torn”. She died in childbirth. She was swept off the ship en route to Australia. She was left behind in Africa. What I didn’t do to try to kill her off is hardly worth mentioning but – she survived. She always was a survivor. If there is one thing that stands out from counselling, it is that the victims are dead. The fact that one is a live makes one a Survivor. But, don’t be content to merely survive, make sure you go on to thrive.

Survivors are the backbone of my writing. I admire and look up to people who have not just survived but who go on to thrive. Those who pick themselves up by their own bootlaces and head onward and upward.

Who are your inspirational literary thrivers? One who was in part the inspiration for “Torn” was Elizabeth Gaskell’s John Thornton from “North and South”. For those of you who have not read this book or seen the miniseries where Richard Armitage does a very memorable job of playing “Go where you will… the name of John Thornton of Milton is know and respected amongst all men of business…”. From childhood poverty after his father’s suicide he paid his father’s debts AND raised himself and his family to fame not “in England only, but in Europe…” as his mother proudly declares. To be bankrupted himself, lose everything and yet not afraid to begin again.

Of course, beside him he had the resilient Margaret Hale, survivor of much family heartache and tragedy. Surviving and Thriving are always so much better when  you are not alone.

So, I’ve told you mine, now please, tell me about one of your inspirational literary heroes?

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Life goes on…

01 Monday Jun 2015

Posted by Zoetic Words in LIFE, LOVE

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loss, PTSD, Survivor, Survivor Guilt, thriver, victim, Winter

Wooded bridge in the port between sunrise.
The gathering of the clans is behind me and the scattering of same is almost complete. The sun comes up whether we feel ready for it…or not. Life goes on with or without our loved ones. This morning was the first day of winter here “down under”. The slight chill in the air matched my Monday morning mood.

There’s not a lot any one of us can do except get out of bed and put one foot in front of another until the day is done. I don’t know about you but although I’ve lost maybe more than my share of loved ones, I’ve never had the misfortune of losing as many within such a short period as my character Mary in “Torn” and those like her in Ireland in the 1800s.

Losses coming one after another for an extended period can beat one down emotionally. Surviving when others  around you fall victim can also lead to feelings of guilt for having survived or Survivor’s Guilt. Reason and logic might have little to do with such feelings but they are no less painful for it.

Though it may not have been recognised until relatively modern times, that doesn’t mean people before its discovery did not suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Becoming a Thriver under such circumstances can be a nearly impossible task. It takes a special kind of person to live on and prosper without the help available today. How do you think you would go?

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Be a Thriver

19 Tuesday May 2015

Posted by Zoetic Words in LIFE, LOVE, TORN

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Irish Australians, Irish Famine, Survivor, thriver, victim

In style end of the XIX begining of the XX century

Victim? Survivor? Thriver?

Different individuals can go through the same circumstance and come out vastly different. Even siblings in the same family can react differently to trauma. What makes one a victim, another a survivor and another a thriver?

This fascinates me. So much so that my book, Torn, begins in Ireland at the time of the Great Famine and follows Mary who chooses to be a Thriver. She survived when the rest of her family died of starvation. But she does much more than Survive.

“The victims are dead. You are a survivor.” Those words are still as powerful today as they were when I first saw them. But, is survival enough? Not for Mary, not for Liam and not for me. My characters want to live the best life they can. Mere existence is not enough.

How far would you be prepared to go to get the kind of life you want? Many Irish famine survivors were prepared to go to the ends of the earth to make a new life. The ships they sailed on were called “Coffin Ships” because of the number of victims they carried. Some victims had no chance of arriving at their destinations because of their physical condition on embarkation. Others died because of the conditions on board, the overcrowding, sickness and disease.

Thankfully, Mary and Liam are not forced onto one of those ships. They, along with their friends and some of Liam’s horses, sail to Moreton Bay, in what was then part of New South Wales. Some years later it became part of Queensland but, that’s another story.

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