Amanda Fino Certified Disability Self Advocate & Author Sasha Fino
LIVING STRONG WITH CEREBRAL PALSY
I do have to say this blog post is Not for the fant at heart!
Let me also confess to my readers, this book is my cup of tea! If you love my book; Blue Bell: A Dark Academy Romance then put Amber’s Erotic Possession on your to-read list.
I’m Astrid V.J., award-winning author, social anthropologist and transformational life coach. I would like to thank Amanda for reaching out to me and asking about my upcoming novel which is a project very close to my heart.
The Apprentice Storyteller is a fantasy/sci-fi cross-over about itinerant storyteller, Viola Alerion, and how she meets a boy who wants to become her apprentice. She is a grumpy, irascible person who doesn’t want to be saddled with any extra responsibility but the boy refuses to take no for an answer and eventually she gives in, accepting him as her apprentice and allowing him to accompany her on her travels.
Although The Apprentice Storyteller is all about a journey, it is not only the physical journey of an itinerant storyteller and her apprentice, nor is it merely a voyage of a boy learning about the universe and how it works while learning the art of storytelling. This is a story about the inner journey we are all capable of, the power we hold at the tips of our fingers and that most of us never tap into.
Viola’s journey is all about the realisation that something in the current situation, circumstance or condition causes dissatisfaction and the growing sense of longing we all feel in those times is a source of power. The novel looks at how to transform ones experience into something meaningful and, in so doing, transform the life one is living into something one loves.
When I was twelve, I wanted to become a writer. It was my most ardent dream and I worked on my novels every spare moment I had. I used to walk around with a big, hard-backed file under one arm and a pen in hand, constantly filling it up with spare sheets of paper.
In time, that dream became crowded by shadows and I gave into the thoughts that told me I’d never make it, that my books weren’t worth it and that writers are poor. I don’t know where the belief about finances came from but it was very powerful and stuck with me, leading me to even deny the many examples that belied that very thought. I dismissed J.K. Rowling, for example, by pointing out that there was no way my books could be as good as Harry Potter. At every turn, I denied myself any possibility of success and turned instead to something “reasonable” and studied Psychology, a subject I actually ended up hating and Anthropology, which I learned so much from.
The desire to write never left me and if I ignored my pen for too long, my heart strings would tug at me remorselessly. Over time, I continued to put myself down and particularly denied that my writing had any worth, even if others who read my books thought they were amazing and told me I should publish them. I don’t know exactly when the shift happened. It wasn’t some crazy “ah-ha” moment. It was more a gradual changing of perceptions and, at last, little over a year ago, I made a decision that I would reach for my dream and prove to myself that I am worthy of being an author no matter what. I’ve published three books since then and am working very hard on a whole lot more. I’ve met some amazing people on this journey as well and I am truly grateful for all the opportunities that have opened up before me.
Last year, I also found out about transformational life coaching and realised that it is my second calling. My interest in Psychology, back in the day, was based on my desire to help people overcome the difficulties of their lives, but I have no interest in telling people what is wrong with them. I’m much more interested in guiding people to find their own solutions to overcome the problems they face and to reach for the success they long for. The principles underlying human transformation are simple and can really bring about huge changes if we use them in the optimal way. Many of us start on the path of change, we make new year’s resolutions, we decide to diet and get into shape, we push for the dream job or vacation of a lifetime, but many of us try to bridge the gap in a disorganised way, without understanding how things work and how they fit together.
I came up with the idea for The Apprentice Storyteller many years ago but there was something missing and I realised during my certification training as a transformational life coach that the principles of transformation were my missing piece. As soon as the penny dropped, the story unfolded perfectly and took my breath away. It was entirely different from anything I’ve ever written before and totally challenged me to grow as a writer.
I wrote the manuscript in November during NaNoWriMo and have spent the past months trying to put together what I need to get the book to a professional editor because I take my readers as seriously as I like to be treated when I pick up a book. The original plan of using my income from my day job towards this project fell through when my husband lost his job and he’s still seeking, but I didn’t want my circumstances to stop this book from seeing the light of day, especially when it has the power to uplift and transform lives. I had to find the courage to acknowledge that the principles I’ve included in The Apprentice Storyteller can work for anyone, including me.
If you’d like to find out more about The Apprentice Storyteller, you can check out my Wattpad (where I have a few chapters available for free), or the crowdfund I set up as a pre-order for the book and an accompanying series of novellas. I recently did a live reading of the first three chapters.
Remember, no matter what it is you want to do, the power within you is far greater than any circumstance or situation you may find yourself in.
“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” Henry David Thoreau
Wattpad link: https://www.wattpad.com/user/AstridVJ
Live reading link: https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v=2623332261326163
Editor’s notes,
This book is in editing right now and the crowdfund has ended, so there’s no worries. It will be published at the end of August.
Happy Day to one and all!!!~ 🌷☕🍀 Lest welcome MARCH 2020!! 🐣🌸🌻🌼🎐 Your new copy CP Gal Reader Nest Newsletter is out and in your in-box just to read with your cup of coffee!!!~ 📰🗞☕https://mailchi.mp/b6d5…/cp-gal-readers-nest-november-452985
Take a look at my new newsletter!
In hopes of spreading Cerebral Palsy awareness, we are welcoming 31+ authors for takeovers each day, from March 1st to the 31st in Amanda Fino Reader’s Nest. Each day an author will post something about Cerebral Palsy, with giveaways and fun!
The winner is the person who participates the most in the group during the entire month. Have fun, and enjoy it! People with Cerebral Palsy don’t need your sympathies or your hard-earned money. What we are looking for are your VOICE and understanding. To the people that live with Cerebral Pasty, We invite you all to tell each of your fantastic tales about overcoming, living life with CP.
I am genuinely thankful for this year, 2019, which was the exceptional year of this decade for me, in fact my whole life! I want to show my Gratitude for everything in this magnificent year that is 2019!!!
In the final process of getting adopted by the Fino’s: What more can I say that you had read here… I am overjoy to become Ms. Amanda Fino. LOVE LOVE LOVE my new family.
Author at Blue Fortune Enterprises, LLC: This is out of pure luck. At the very last minute this minute, this book publishing company for something. I was heartbroken, and I thought it was unfair, so I made this post in a Facebook group that world-wide with members · 25,676, and I got a comment from Narielle that is the owner of my two-book publishing press and the rest is history. Omerta: Timeless Ending came out late last summer with CP Gal coming out next month!
Becoming a participant in the Partners in Policymaking Program (PIP): I am blessed, thankful, thrilled to be a part of this. While working on getting my college certificate. It’s truly amazing how MUCH they all have made impact on my life in the short time since we’ve met on Step. 13! I believe that I grew in this short time. #PIPclassof2020!!!
Summer Vacation in Buffalo New York: BEST VACATION! We all went to Buffalo New York for five days, and we jam-pack it with beautiful memories. Niagara Falls took the Maid of the Mist. Play on the beach on Lake Erie. Meet some of my new Fino family, and so much more! =)
Getting a baby Kitten: Back in February, we welcome a new member of the Fino Family a Russian Blue Cat. His name is Koda but I call him Blue. 🐱🥰🥰🥰
Starting my Newsletter: CP Gal Readers Nest had been pride and joy since coming out February 7! It grew over the year, with over 150 subscribers getting it via email. I am also grateful that I met my Best Friend Forever Ty, Tylia, out of my newsletter! 💚💚💚💚💚
Finish my autobiography, CP Gal: When I went for Partners in Policymaking Program, I had to sum up my whole life as an answer’s to one the questions of many questions on their Application Form. Lead me off to fished witting my autobiography. Cerebral Palsy Gal has been a work in progress for years; I haven’t found the exact words until then also changing my pan-name from Alexandra Forry to Amanda Fino.
This is my new blog what I wrote for another blog, Words Between Coasts about what I’m very thankful this year 2019.
Dear fellow Cerebral Palsy Advocate,
My name is Amanda Fino. I’m thrilled and excited to say that my new book, CP Gal, is coming out on December 15, 2019. In it, I wrote the real hardships that I have endured growing up with cerebral palsy. I found my own voice in the hopes of becoming the voice for those who, through disability, cannot speak for themselves. Coming out from my beloved book publishing company, Blue Fortune Enterprises, LLC, on December 15, 2019. My dream is to have it on Amazon’s bestseller list in its first week. I’m looking for help to spread the word. Writing my autobiography was very therapeutic. It allowed me to express myself, my truth. https://www.facebook.com/events/768447166901838/
I feel like there needs to be a book on adult matters of a full-flesh woman that has Cerebral Palsy — expressing my deep inner emotions within myself. Having a unique personal outlook on life, I admit that I made a lot of horrible mistakes on my behalf, and I own up to ALL of them. In hopes for other young people that has Cerebral Palsy not to make the same mistake as I did.
In honor of CP Gal, I invite all of you to share this in hopes of spreading disability awareness. Your help is needed for those who suffer from Cerebral Palsy and other Maladies. Let’s make a movement in history. Please take a second to sign this petition. http://chng.it/b6VmsmvLdJ
Thank you for taking the time from your busy schedule to read this.
Amanda Fino
On July 20, 2013, it was an extraordinary day because I published my debut book, Omerta Affair. A romance set in the violent underworld of the Las Vegas Mafia. Remembering that day, I was jumping with overjoy, tears of joy. It was a super fabulous, wonderful feeling, “I really did, I’m a published indie author.” Fast forward six years later, it’s time for me celebrating my book once more as it releases under a new title. Omerta: Timeless Endings from Lavender Press An imprint of Blue Fortune Enterprises, LLC on August 27, 2019
It’s all began on my 22 birthday. I went to the newly open Mob Museum in Las Vegas Nevada. To my shock, Frank Cuttolla was there signing his book. I met him and told him that I want to be a Mafia-Romance, and he said to me that if I need help, just let him know. I said okay thinking he has better things to do than helping me a young CP girl at the time. I found him on Facebook weeks later, and we began to talk, he always inviting me to this and that. I base my first book “Omerta Affair” off on Tony Spilotro’s reign as The Las Vegas Mafia boss, in the 1970s. He had it all, running the Crime underworld. He could have any woman he wanted in Las Vegas. Instead, he became romantically Geri Rosenthal. At first, it was a Casino’s FanFic to the 1995 move, that I was witting and putting online for free. My family and friend told me it was way too good to be a FanFic. After I finished my book, Frank hooked me up with some people and that how my book came to be. Now he’s Uncle Frank to me.
Since then, I have continued to gravitate toward writing dark, mature romances, some suitable only for adults. It is frustrating to me that some authors don’t take me seriously because of that I have Cerebral Palsy. I write dark romance, and my Cerebral Palsy had nothing with it. Even if I didn’t have Cerebral Palsy, I would still write Dark Romance books. On November 17, 2018, after years of writer’s block and personal problems, I finally came out with the Deepest Element, which is a short story under my formal pen name Alexandra Forry. Now I’m rewriting Deepest Elements to be a full-flash novel tiled Blue Bell my goal for it to come out late 2020.
Blue Bell set at a very elite boarding school that has darkened within its wall. Arriving in Radcliffe Heights, Rhode Island, freshman Peony “Poppy” Warwick admired the picturesque small town. But deep in the shadows of the woods near Blue Bell Boarding School, and along its hallowed halls, lurked illicit sex, murder, and harrowing danger. Seduced by Damon Dashwood, the handsome, blue-eyed, white blonde 41-year-old Headmaster, Poppy enters a world of love, ecstasy, heartbreak, betrayal, and death.
How Did I get my idea for Blue Bell? In 2005 I was living in Pahrump, Nevada, that’s world-famous for its whorehouse of ill representatives. When breaking news hit our town’s newspaper, and then it went on to become a remarkable news story on cbsnews.com.
The story went like this. This guy went and told detectives he found the videotape of a young of 4 or 5 years of age girl who had sexually assaulted in this homemade videotape. Investigators don’t think this guy made the tape.
Being homeschooled with nothing to do, I followed this story until I read this five years later; “We found the victim. She’s safe,” Nye County sheriff’s Detective told The Associated Press. I was fifteen at the time. I had made up this story idea.
About a girl in a boarding school that is determined to expose her school’s evil headmaster. After she had discovered a prostitution ring, sex trafficking, and murder within the school’s walls and on its grounds, even though human trafficking is a foul, very dark subject, the morale of this book is “fight for what you believe in, for what’s right” and “never give up.” I never wrote it down until December of 2017.
“It is an interesting story that is generally well told. The basic premise is sound, and it has the potential to be a well-received psychological thriller. The two main (Poppy and Dashwood) are well constructed and carry the story well. The plot and storyline are clear. The reader can see from the mission that Poppy is on; Exposing the criminality of her headmaster Dashwood and the school in the sex scandal that had been going on for years.” A review of DEEPEST ELEMENTS.
I never did plan of having my two main characters, Poppy and Dashwood, falling in love with each other. I like to point out that, It a time of great confusion for girls as they start to get sexual desires. There is an element of excitement and danger with an older man with power. Poppy knew that Dashwood is a criminal, and their relationship is illegal. LOVE is stronger than HATE, that why I shall make it she want him in jail party because oddly she would have him all to herself. It’s love everlasting.
