How did you become interested in writing?
I was practically born writing. My mother told me I once wrote a poem on my high chair tray using alphabet crackers. Not really, but I did start young. I simply always felt most confident expressing myself in written form. Then, I could organize the jumble of thoughts constantly milling about in my mind into some reasonable and recognizable form.
Why did you feel you had to tell this story?
At first, I didn’t realize that what I was writing was going to become a book. I was merely documenting my journey, my search for peace and meaning in what had happened. I wrote constantly about what I was feeling and the things I discovered, having developed a sort of desperate need to put myself under the microscope—to examine what I was experiencing and WHY. I researched the very real physical withdrawal we go through when we are no longer with our relationship partner. I searched for tools I could use to ride out the most intense period of shattering. This included meditation, using music to impact my mood, learning the best ways to battle my ego, facing my loneliness and depression, dealing with the crushing disappointment and anger I felt, regaining my faith in the universe, and finally opening myself back up to the world and to love. Essentially, I was charting my course to that state of grace I’d been longing to achieve. The next step in that process was to share it.
What advice would you give to aspiring writers on the writing and publishing process?
Keep honing your craft. There is always something to learn. Read voraciously. When it comes to publishing, get help. It might seem like it’s an easy process, but in order to really do your work justice, I recommend having a team of people to work with you. Don’t let rejection stop you. Use what you learn from your mistakes to grow as an artist.
How do your family and friends feel about the book?
My family and friends think it’s the best thing that’s ever been written. I mean, none of them have actually SAID that to me, but I assume that’s how they feel.
When you rip out a page from a spiral notebook, do you leave the tabby pieces or do you pull them out?
I pull them out and sprinkle them on the floor like confetti.
If you were a superhero or villain, what would your power be?
Mind reading. I like to know what people are thinking. People don’t speak their mind enough, and too much supposition makes us crazy!
Synopsis
The world needs another self-help book like it needs another Reality TV show. At least, that’s what I would have said a year ago, right up until I found myself in need of something—anything!—to pull me through the worst breakup of my life. What do you do when you want to be gracious, graceful, pragmatic, and filled with equanimity, but you’re so hurt and angry you feel as if you could go around town ramming your car into random stationary objects without batting an eyelash? What do you do when your friends and family run out of platitudes and old, tired slogans like, “Time heals all wounds” and “Better to have loved and lost...”? (Slogans which, incidentally, make you want to scoop out your frontal lobe with a melon baller.)
This is the stuff that drives us to the very edge of annihilation. At least, it feels that way. It feels like a very real obliteration of the self. But this breakdown can be the worst thing that’s ever happened to you, or it can be the best thing for precisely this moment in your life.
Buddha Breaking Up is a modern-day spiritual guide for how to embrace dramatic, life-altering change and use it as a means of rediscovering the Self. It answers the age-old question, What’s next? (Changing out of your bathrobe and combing your hair.)
Combining humor, pop culture, and Zen principles, Part I of Buddha Breaking Up explores the science of falling in love, provides useful tools for riding out the heartbreak—including how to handle social networking and other technology apparently designed for liberal applications of self-torment—and offers unique and practical techniques for moving through the lowest depths of the shattering. Part II, “The Bodhicitta of Breaking Up,” illuminates methods for battling the wounded ego, dealing with anger, creating better relationships, and finally, loving and valuing yourself so you can reach a place of acceptance and grace in your new life.
About the Author
Stephanee Killen resides in Ohio, where the weather is fickle but the people are hardy. Her passions include learning to embrace the ridiculous and showing others how to engage their spirituality through humor and authenticity.
After working as a freelance editor for the Ballantine Publishing Group, and then as a web editor for 1stBooks Library (now Authorhouse), Stephanee went on to become the senior editor and project manager at Integrative Ink, a publishing pre-production company she established in January of 2001. A busy entrepreneur, Stephanee also has a lifelong love of the arts. She is the founder of the Creative Cosmic Experiment, a forum for experimental and contemporary fiction, music, poetry, and social commentary.
When she’s not helping people become famous authors, she plays percussion, sips Ginger tea, and shares her poems about the meaning of life with her very smart dog.
It's Valentine's Day--the day candy and card companies unite in their desperate bid for your hard-earned dollars (or, in the case of the recently single, the day when the world apparently wants us to smother ourselves using giant stuffed bears holding heart-shaped pillows). Look, don't give your money to the people who want to feed you chocolate! Or, go ahead and give your money to them, but also buy a copy of "Buddha Breaking Up." Studies show that it provides the same feel-good chemicals and antioxidants you receive from a good bar of Chocolove XOXOX. (Okay, not really. We didn't do any such study. But it's still a reasonable assumption.)
FOR MORE INFO
Website: http://www.buddhabreakingup.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BuddhaBreakingUp
BUY THE BOOK
Amazon: http://amzn.to/WjiGbY