So many people have been so wonderfully supportive over 2012 and I wanted a way to give back.
A free Kindle edition of A Broken Ring – A Woman’s Journey from Abuse to Empowerment to ring in the New Year!
My gift to you for 2013.
Available for 2 days only 1st-2nd January 2013
Please go to Amazon Kindle for your 2013 download (link below).
Wishing you a wonderful New Year!
Today was the draw for a free copy of A Broken Ring! 
I printed all the names of everyone who stopped by and ‘Liked’ my face page: www.Facebook.com/CLCappetta. Vin and I cut the names into strips and placed them into a glass bowl so you could see them! 
Vin, my husband kindly did the draw which we video-ed so you can all see it and I thought it best if I just hold the book in the background and let him do it all! lol.
Sorry if the lighting isn’t professional or the sound is a little… eee -uk but I have yet to buy a video camera which I keep promising myself to do… one day soon!
So here we go and the winner is!!!…. drum role…
Don’t worry if your name wasn’t picked as I have signed up with Goodreads. :http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6535290.C_L_Cappetta to give away five copies and I’m just waiting for their green light!
Please join me today with the launch
It is available on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/C-L-Cappetta/e/B009D035VO/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1
Also available on www.createspace.com https://www.createspace.com/3981276
I have set up two forums one on Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/79787-ask-c-l-cappetta-something
The other forum for people who are not registered on Goodreads can go to: http://clairecappetta.webs.com/apps/forums/show/7191463-q-a-about-the-launch-of-a-broken-ring
I’ll also be on Facebook: www.Facebook.com/CLCappetta
I hope you are all having a wonderful Sunday
I can’t believe it’s Thursday already! Where did this week go? It was supposed to be an easy quiet, laid back time… guess that went out the window!
Monday started off quietly enough, I spent some time catching up on emails, blogs I love to follow. I cruised articles and websites, thinking about how this week was going to be fun developing the cover for my book. I told myself a few ‘tweaks’ on the original cover I posted at the beginning of this blog journey should do it… (http://clairecappetta.wordpress.com/2012/01/25/the-rough-draft-of-the-book-cover-drum-role/)
Until I realized while looking for the picture I had used had been wiped from my computer… hmm.
I took the boardwalk picture while visiting a friends beach house on my Blackberry. One problem, the Blackberry died on me a month ago. It was sad. I’d had for over 2 years, seeing me through a lot of times and fitted snugly in the back pocket of my jeans on the rare occasions I went out! My husband and the store recommended that I move to Android now that my business had changed so much from reviewing documents to social media and pictures. Sorry, I digress.
Anyway, I truly thought I had emailed the picture to myself (I do this in case my computer dies). Well my laptop caught a cold a couple of months ago which in order to ‘heal’ it, was set back to factory settings. Hence I lost my original picture, completely! Vin and I scoured every where to try and find it but to no avail. Of course, the picture I uploaded to the blog wasn’t good enough to use either, so back to the drawing board!
After several ideas and pictures I developed this below. It’s of an evening with fireflies Perfect!
It brought to mind the light coming out of the dark, how apt as the story is one of a woman’s journey from abuse to empowerment.I put a little broken gold ring in the center, representing the circle of life and it’s journeys ( getting deep now, huh?) I’ve put the script in yellows and golds to also represent the light, but at the foot of the cover I wrote “The ride to Liberty series” in purple, to represent the purple ribbon of abuse, (http://clairecappetta.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/one-good-reason-to-wear-purple-this-month/)
The story was originally going to be called “Broken Ring” which I changed to “The Ride to Liberty”, then after discovering the story was becoming a much bigger picture, it is now going to become a trilogy, (http://clairecappetta.wordpress.com/2012/05/02/a-ride-to-liberty-aha/)
Keeping up with me so far? lol ( I have put in links to back posts to explain for new readers here)
So there you go, an explanation as to why I chose and designed this cover the way it is. I wanted it to convey a message of empowerment and inspiration:).
TA-DAH!
I want to thank you.
For all the love and support I have received from you all on this journey I embarked on, with this blog, a little over 4 months ago. I have laughed and cried my way through it but it would be nothing without you.
English: a love heart in water (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
First Chapter of A Broken Ring
I am posting up my first Chapter of A Broken Ring
However!
Please do not read if you are under 18!
Are sensitive in nature or easily upset!
It is fairly graphic I’m told and is intended for ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY!!!
Okay. There’s my disclaimer
Please leave comments and feedback and let me know what you think.
Thank you
Please click the link below;
(Or the page tab above)
Don't they say "Life should be a beach!, Live, Laugh, Love!"
When I started to write this blog, I have to say I was a little nervous. The experience though has changed me, I didn’t know if anyone would be interested in what I had to say.
I like to write about events that I find a little funny or quirky, like Valentine’s Day and Shrove Tuesday. The history regarding celebratory days are interesting to me, so I like a giggle now and then, but there is a deeper reason. I was terrified about writing the subjects that really concern me and I should have been a lot more elaborate on the “About” page than I was, hiding behind family and my cute little puddy cat, Freya (Who featured on the “Warning signs to look for when you end the relationship” post). She was my furry little model with the owl eyes!
The real “About” page should have read differently:
My name is Claire and I am writing this blog as a journey through writing a novel based on empowerment from abuse, (well, easy so far).
Who am I really? Well, here we go:
I was raped two weeks before my fifteenth birthday in my own home, while my parents were out. He was a close “friend” who I had spent a lot of time over the summer with. He was twenty-two. He told me if I told anyone, he would kill me, over the next five years he attempted to keep his promise, even though I told no-one. He tried to drown me, threatened me with both a gun and a knife. He stalked me for five years. I knew that my father was much respected in the town and didn’t want to bring shame on him and was also worried about what he may do if he found out. I didn’t want my father to end up in jail, which I know would’ve happened if I had spoken out.
I did finally speak out when it was over at the age of twenty-two, and it only ended when the man’s girlfriend thought he was hanging around me because I wanted to date him and promptly beat me one night after work, (I worked part-time behind a bar, this was easy socializing for me as the bar blocked people from me). My boss tried to get her off me, which was then she started to beat him down too, I can only guess this finally scared the guy and he finally left me alone.
I was angry and bitter and realize that I had RTS (Rape Trauma Syndrome) and was basically hitting on guys when I was a teenager as ‘revenge’, when they were interested I would turn them down, cruelly. I would insult them, pour beer over them, told them they weren’t ‘good enough’. My school work had suffered I was told I had a high IQ, but I left school at sixteen, I went to work, when I did get a place at college my mother told me I couldn’t go because she was used to my rent money of ten pounds a week. My mother and I fought a lot, even when she found out that I had been raped, she said it was sad, but I had to ‘pull myself up by my bootstraps’ and ‘get on with life…’ (Don’t you hate cliches? I do). I did date a couple of times through my teenage years but the relationships were with “Out of Towner’s’, ones I didn’t see too often, or could go to if I needed to escape the town.
I met someone though who had known since I was eighteen and he asked me if I wanted to go on a vacation. I felt I could trust him and we went. He talked of marriage, I became pregnant. We went on vacation in the July, we were married in September, (my mother complained about the cost of a registry wedding).I had my beautiful baby girl the following April. Two years later I had a baby boy, who I adored.
The marriage became very difficult, we argued constantly, he liked to control and I was struggling with it. I took the savings and left with my children. I lived on my own for two years. I met someone new who started as a friend and after a while he moved in with me. This didn’t work though as I was working three jobs to support us and he brought in nothing, he worked. He just didn’t want to contribute. Finally I gave him an ultimatum either help out or move out. He shook his head to both. He constantly put me and my children down. He would tell me I was worthless. I remember telling him “Don’t worry one day I may just get to be as perfect as you!” but it was never ending and he would only stop if I was in tears.
With help from a friend I packed his bags and dropped them at his mother’s when he was away one weekend.
His was mad! He followed me, stalked me, call incessantly, leaving messages, my neighbors noticed and asked if they could help, but there was nothing they could do. He threatened me, he pushed his way into my home and held me kidnapped for three days, telling me he would kill me and my children, he tied me to a chair in my kitchen through the day with a knife saying only death would separate us. Finally on the Friday evening I promised to let him back into the house if he went out. It took me three hours to convince him I would, he finally left and I called my father, I couldn’t speak and collapsed while I was on the phone with him. He rushed around to see me like the trouper he was with brandy in hand, sat in a chair waiting for the guy to come back. He had sent me to bed, my father bless him sat in that chair all night in case he came back!
Three days later he did, by this time my local police knew him, I had called them several times when he came threatening me, They told me it was getting bad and wanted to arrest him, but I said what was the point? He’ll be back out the next day, but even angrier! The last straw came when he pushed a note through my door giving me a deadline, type written, stating that if I didn’t take him back by midnight the following night he was going to kill me at midnight. The police told me to leave the county for the weekend and they went and arrested him, also slapping a Restraining Order on him.
I was offered a job several miles away while this was happening, I accepted it, sold my house quietly, leaving the ‘For Sale” notice on it. I confided in my mother who told me that if I moved so far south she would take me to court to gain custody of my children, proclaiming Grandparents rights. I quickly realized not to confide in her again quickly! I packed my belongings quietly, I had told my children we would be leaving soon to live by the sea. The local police told me if I didn’t leave, I would be dead. I left my car outside the house, I rented a car, had my belongings packed onto a removal truck, which was seen by the guy passing, even though he wasn’t supposed to be any closer than a mile away. After I collected the rental car I ran home for overnight bags, set lights on timers, my children climbed into the car and I heard the phone ringing, it was my friend, he had called her to say he saw I was leaving and was going to get a shotgun for us. She screamed for me to get out and that I had fifteen minutes before he would be at my door. I left!
I moved to the south coast, my children were homesick and I was hanging on by a thread. My daughter said she wanted to live with her father, couldn’t blame her, poor thing! Four weeks after moving to the south coast, their father collected them, with an agreement I could see them whenever I wanted, but he always told me no when I tried to arrange it. I found out later my mother had told everyone I was a manic depressive, NOT TRUE!
I worked on the south coast of the UK for several years where I ran my own successful mortgage company before meeting my husband, who had also been in abusive relationship. We understand each perfectly, although I have a couple left over “kinks’ I still startle sometimes, I still have a problem with self-image, I feel uncomfortable around men who are taller than me if they come too close and I am 5’8! Sometimes, just sometimes when I’m in a stressful situation my mind will crash and go blank. But the best thing about me is that I am alive! I heal through humor. I want to say to people they are NOT alone like I was. There is support and help. I had one good friend and my local police that I confided in, but they meant the world to me! They were my safety and sanity.
Okay, so that’s who I am, I also like to ski, sit around my fire pit with my friends and good cognac.I love the beach and I want to travel around the world and do so many things that I can do, because I’m alive! As the song goes… ‘How d’ya like me now?” lol
One of the first things on my list though is to finish my book and advocate for people who are suffering and that is why you will see my posts about Rape Trauma Syndrome, Stalking, and Domestic Violence etc. It is not pretty and it’s not fluffy bunnies and rainbows, but it is real life for some, and if I can help just one person, then it will be worth everything! I am not a survivor and I am not a victim, I’m just Claire.
Thank you for bearing with this long post today! Blogging tips say keep it short and simple… Oh well guess I blew that today! ; )
In the next few days I will be posting about Rape Trauma Syndrome and as a preview, the first chapter of my novel, Ride to Liberty. I usually end a posting with a couple of questions but today I’m kinda all out of ‘em!
Blessings
Who's watching you?
If you have been following me on this blog, you’ll have seen I like to cover various subjects from ‘What makes you happy?’ Too raising domestic violence and abuse awareness but not excluding wonderful little holidays, which we can celebrate with gusto! I like to mix it up because life has many aspects, good and bad, easy and challenging.
Today I am writing about relationships. We have all had good and bad relationships. The good ones will hopefully result in a happy, lifelong partnership or marriage. The bad relationships end usually with a mutual agreement to move apart, wishing each other the best. My question to you is_ what happens if the other person does not want to accept this.
What if_ this person decides to stalk you? How do you recognize the signs of a stalker? Did you know that this has affected 3.4 million Americans over the age of 18? Could you be next?
Warning signs to look for after you have ended the relationship:
It usually starts with the phone calls. The endless calls, when the phone rings and you recognize the phone number.
It makes you feel vulnerable, stressed, fearful and threatened. Your privacy is gone and you have a stalker.
Stalkers have different psyches. It can be the jilted lover, husband or wife. It can be a co-worker, an admirer or friend, a social media ‘friend’. They come from all occupations and lifestyles.
What to do if you have a stalker:
I list all the above to help people understand what it means. The word ‘Stalker’ is banded around as a flippant joke, but when it happens to you, it is debilitating and frightening, even those of us who know we are strong and tough!
I took all the advice I could and when it didn’t stop, I was strongly advised by the police that I sell my home and move away, far away…350 miles difference in fact (Which in the UK is regarded as far!). When a police officer tells you he believes your stalker has murderous intent, you tend to make plans to move quickly! It didn’t stop until after the court case. I still received phone calls at my new place of work, but when the Magistrates Court declared him guilty and threatened him with imprisonment. It stopped.
I decided to post this today, as I read Kim Kardashian has moved to a gated community because of a stalker. Many celebrities have had problems with stalkers, take for example:John Lennon (His stalker shot and killed him then read “The Catcher in the Rye’ to him while he was dying), Catherine Zeta-Jones, Halle Berry, Steven Spielberg, Jodie Foster, Mel Gibson and Janet Jacksonto name a few.
One last fact for you, National Stalking Awareness Month is in January every year since 2004. I hope this blog helps anyone who has or is experiencing it.
I have included some links below, which you may find both interesting and useful:
http://www.stalkingawarenessmonth.org
http://www.rainn.org (Domestic Abuse website)
http://www.safehorizon.org (Empowerment after abuse)
http://www.ncvc.org (A National Stalking Resource Center)
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/kim-kardashian-moves-amid-stalker-fear-140837613.html
The search for what makes us happy
Books by Satya Sarada Kandula
WRITER. YOGI. LIFE ENTHUSIAST.
and men too
@modernwomanis @zhaojanelle
...because being perfect is overrated
Your mind knows only some things. Your inner voice, your instinct, knows everything. If you listen to what you know instinctively, it will always lead you down the right path ...Henry Winkler.
Simple things makes us truly happy!
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