One of the Late Harry Leo Duran aka NOTORIOUS DOC’s favorite movies was

Mujeres al Borde de un Ataque de Nervios.

If you could have seen me on the phone earlier (Pascha Sunday, April 24, 2022), you would have thought I was the lead character.  Why?  Because I was trying to tell my friend, Luann, that I had a June 5 deadline to enter the Hay House contest to win a $10,000 advance and a publishing contract.  To do so, I have to submit a cover letter and a proposal.

Not one to try to blather on from memory, I wanted to read from one or three successful proposals we, in the PRIVATE MEMBERS only community were given.  I KNEW I had downloaded them.  What I had named them, or what the original file names were, I couldn’t remember.  And, if anyone in their right mind is anything like I am, that triggered a panic attack.  DOWNLOAD FOLDER?  Nope.  The folder I created for all of the Hay House assignments? NOT SEEING IT.  Keyword PROPOSAL – nope.  OH GOD NO PLEASE!

Breathe, apologize, hang up, break into a sweat.  Breathe.  Do a keyword search on the site.  Nope.  NO NO NO!  Search the community discussion – someone must have asked this, right?

VOILA and someone answered with a link.

AH HA!  I’m not crazy – yet – well, maybe a little – more than a little.

FILE NAME   = . . . . And with that I found both files safe and sound WHERE I had saved them in the folder with the Hay House file name.  I just couldn’t see them while on the phone.

Uh, oh, but if you’re writing a memoir, one text exchange said, you have to submit the completed manuscript.

AND THAT was what I had stored in the back of my brain.  I have to finish the entire book because it’s half memoire of my life with a psychopath and half biography of a pervert narcissist board certified physician!

Keep in mind that I had to download all of the photos and text messages and Facebook Messenger screen shots to the late fiend from hell’s laptop because that is the PRIMARY source material for the book, sort through several file boxes with dumped paperwork that we found laying all over the apartment and/or the condo, and sort through 65 years worth of my late husband’s life to write the book!  And Apple’s  FINDER isn’t all that great.  I often have trouble finding what I need to file the taxes, pay bills, you know, LIFE!

When the Notorious Doc died, and I unlocked his cell phone, I realized I had a book that should become a best seller.  Page Publishing advertises on the radio all the time, so I used the contact form and got a reply.  Because my book is not like anything that has ever been written, I sent the Literary Development Agent an email introducing myself and the book and added a PDF of the first 38 pages.  The agent called and said he had submitted the draft to the review board, and they were very interested in publishing my book BUT the author has to pay all the upfront fees.  ALLEGEDLY the review board only accepts a very very small percentage of submitted manuscripts.  That said, I still couldn’t afford the up front fees.  I also had only just started.

Less than a month later Hay House offered a free Four Day Writer’s Workshop.  Free is great.  FREE gets me hooked.  Before the four days were over, I signed up for their membership to the Writer’s Community and it has been worth every penny and then some!

Within the private site, we have a Facebook like comment area where people within your Pathway can share each other’s homework assignments.  THAT is INVALUABLE.  It’s where we can promote our books before they ever get underway or while they are well underway and get lots of feedback and constructive criticism and recommendations and pats on the back.  Over on the Facebook page just for us, we can use Messenger to share files, or friend each other or do group chats.

It’s within these forums, that I’ve tried to use my years as a college librarian and college library director to share websites.  What, for example, is an AUTHOR PLATFORM?  I had no clue.  Most of us didn’t.  This webpage answers that:

I had started this website and blog thanks to Yasmin Boland in March 2021 so step one was done and I have, thanks to all of you, an international following.

I got up the courage to start a Facebook page and it took off.  I had a YouTube channel to support my blog so I read up, scanned in photos, launched PowerPoint, created a slide show and spent half a day trying to figure out how to do voice over and by the late afternoon, I uploaded my first video.  It also took off. 

From the feedback I’ve received I do NOT want to use a voice actress to read the audio version.  My voice sounds fine, although everyone said I need to get a headset mic, and some wanted subtitles.  I like to ad lib so that might take awhile.

Facebook ads bombed my timeline and I signed up for several free presentations and bought one.

 I also started posting about my book and about narcissism on Quora and met a FANTASTIC writer named Valentina Blažek.  Not done much with Instagram.  One of the people who knew my husband REALLY REALLY REALLY well wants me to get on Tik Tok.  The Notorious Doc was killing him by giving him injections of insulin.  He’s fine now and we’re beasties!  I can’t make this up!

One of the writers in the group posted that we should buy our own ISBN numbers.  To do that I found this

My biggest hurdle will be to see if Hay House finds my Tell All Book to be uplifting because like all horror movies and fairy tales, if there is a happy ending – and mine is incredible if I do say so myself, it is both cathartic and it gives victims hope.

What types of books are you in the market for?

Some of our best-selling titles are: Medical Medium Cleanse to Heal, by Anthony William; Food Babe Kitchen, by Vani Hari; The High Five Habit, by Mel Robbins; Becoming Supernatural, by Dr. Joe Dispenza, Light Seer’s Tarot, by Chris-Anne; and African Goddess Rising Oracle, by Abiola Abrams.

We are interested in a variety of subjects as long as they have a positive self-help slant to them—no negative concepts that aren’t conducive to helping/healing ourselves or our planet.

We are not accepting proposals for poetry, quotation books, or children’s books. However, all genres, including those mentioned above, are accepted for our workshop and membership contests.

Note that we publish mainly nonfiction in the areas of Self-Help, Mind-Body-Spirit, New Thought, Metaphysical, Spirituality, Psychology, Health/Wellness, Business, Finance, and Inspirational Memoirs. Subjects include social issues, food and nutrition, education, nature/the environment, alternative health/medicine, money/personal finance, entrepreneurship, tarot/oracle/affirmation card decks, religion, men’s and women’s health, spiritual growth, and fitness.

https://hayhouse.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/227066427-Manuscript-Submission-Guidelines

For further reading, click on these links below

How to Build an Author Platform: 8 Important Steps for Beginners

PS I paid for this course.  I found it quite useful and relatively inexpensive.

Tuesday, May 31, 2022 Updated version. Fixed the paragraphs that didn’t get bolded and found another answer! My blog was found by a fellow using Google. He posted a comment on my blog post. Scroll to the bottom of the page. It’s a WOW moment.

Death Sometimes It’s a Good Thing!

And the other day I found an interview with the remarkable and very talented Mary Turner Thompson! I joined her group, the Book Whisperers and I’m off and typing!

I did not choose this title. It is part of a Hay House Writer’s Community Homework Assignment. We get real homework. Lots of homework. Research this. Watch this video. Do a 7 minute Writer’s Prompt. Dig INTO your SOUL and ask

WHY ARE YOU WRITING AT ALL!

Yesterday’s assignments posted. I did the one for Pathway 2 and today I did Pathway 3. I thought I’d “share”. Don’t you just hate the pat response “THANK YOU FOR SHARING”. Can’t people say stuff like

“WOW THAT WAS AMAZING” or “MY GAWD that sucked”. Or “EEWWW I wish you had not told me that”.

SPEAK FROM THE GUT not the script the programmers of our AI universe inputted.

Promoting Author Writing Prompt for Month 3 Pathway 4 | Step 3 | Writing Prompt

The Gift I have to give is a behind the scenes, fly on the wall reality show like experience of discovering the hidden life of my late husband and what it was like be married to a psychotic narcissist physician.  Despite his attempt to try to get me to commit suicide over the years and all the effort he went into trying to leave behind so much horror that I would have no choice but to commit suicide, I not only survived but I am thriving .  Readers will come see through my eyes, feel through my emotions, and rejoice with me as I become friends with my late husband’s friends, overcome the obstacles he erected, and go out onto the public stage as “Barbara Unleashed” instead of the chained and imprisoned version he tried very hard to enforce. 

The Greatest Gift I can give is to tell victims of narcissistic abuse – emotional, psychological, physical, and fiscal, is to not let it break your spirit.  One day you will either escape or your abuser, like mine, will die.  Once free, shake off the shackles and burst forth and tell your story.  Shout it to the world.  Don’t let anyone silence you.  Find witnesses and encourage others to talk about how the abuser affected each as well.

Pray for the Angels and the Divine to intervene to end the abuse and to set you free.  Once free praise the Angels and the Divine – shout out your gratitude, tell the whole world how the Cosmic Forces heard you, and how they supported you, as you yanked the spikes of pain out of your body, and out of your soul, with their help.

Go forth and find others who are struggling with recovering from years or even just months of living with a narcissist. 

The GREATEST GIFT I have to give is the truth that I lived with and suffered at the hands of a physician who was so depraved and so debauched so incarnate evil and yet he did not break my spirit.  I am now a recognized energy healer in my community.  I’ve made friends, thanks to Hay House’s Yasmin Boland’s workshops with people all over the world.  Thanks to Yasmin’s Moonology Challenge in March 2021, I now have a website and blog with an international following.  Thanks to the Hay House Writer’s Community Assignments, I how have a promo on my YouTube Channel, an Author Page about the Notorious Doc on Facebook, and a pretty exciting and full life.

I am going to be 68 years old next month in May 2022 and I’m not dead!  The Greatest Gift I have to Give is the tell you all that not only am I NOT dead, I’m happy.  I’m free at last.  And I have a pretty exciting future that I can manifest.

My late husband was a monster and all he manifested was sickness and a journey through the Twenty Aerial Toll Houses in Hell!

Toll Houses: Truth or Lie?

Joseph Edward Jilbert was born on March 11 in 1956 (a remarkable Pisces Sun Sign and a Virgo Rising Sign)  to a Cherokee mother and a third generation Norwegian American.  Joseph (Jo Jo) grew up on a cotton farm situated on the Mississippi River on the Tennessee border in Hayti, Missouri.  One of 18 children, Jo Jo grew up in extreme poverty. When Jo Jo was only five years old his grandmother told all the children to look through the old Sears Catalog and circle in pencil the toys they each wanted.  She then told them to imagine they had them.  While the others were crying, Jo Jo asked for the catalog back!  Using the photos as a blueprint, he ran around the farm searching for rocks, pieces of wood, crops, tools, etcetera that resembled the shapes of the toys he circled. Once Jo Jo gathered enough material, he pieced together homemade versions of everything he wanted from that catalog.

Because the family often did not have enough for everyone to eat, Jo Jo planted his own secret garden of vegetables to eat.  Two years later at age seven, Jo Jo started experimenting with welding.  His first sculpture was a Catholic cross and his first buyer was the local Priest. The next year at the tender age of eight, Jo Jo was shipped off to Montana to a school for boys.  High school was spent in Job Core.  While still passionate about metal art, this is where he also studied carpentry and forestry.  Graduating top of his class in forestry earned him a $10,000 grant and a one-way ticket to any destination he chose. The Big Apple called out and off he flew.

“Studio 54” on 54th Street in Midtown Manhattan in the heart of Broadway in the 1980s became home to Jo Jo’s DJ career.  It was there that he built decorative sets with various theatrical elements to compliment his music, met celebrities and even my heart throb, Yul Brenner!  Over time Jo Jo perfected the art of making figures out of scrap metal.

In 1992 Joseph decided to move to New Orleans.  The fashion scene became a new passion with Jo Jo designing theatrical costumes.  A male version of Lady Gaga, Jo Jo was known for his love of exorbitant costumes. In New Orleans Joseph managed and owed a number of clubs and restaurants. After a while he started shifting more and more towards sculpting, and at this time Joseph established his art company “Vault”, with 14 employees.  From that point on, Jo Jo immersed himself into commercial neon art and metal sculptures.

Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in August 2005 and uprooted everything,  including Joseph’s art studio and his work. With time in Dallas and Colorado and back to New Orleans, it was in 2018, when Jo Jo’s work was noticed by Zappos Founder Tony Hsieh. Tony was deeply moved by Jo Jo’s art, and he invited him to move to Las Vegas and be a part of the Downtown Project. Ever since then Jo Jo has resided in Vegas, where he continues to sculpt and teach metal sculpture.

Jilbert’s metal sculptures, which weigh anywhere from several pounds to more than a ton, include 20 foot tall figures, Indian warriors, robots and aliens. His work is complex, has lot of layers, and storytelling behind it.  Known as “The Metal Whisperer”, Jo Jo is passionate about teaching and donating his time to honorable causes. Ralph Godwin, a wealthy real estate investor, has purchased several of Jo Jo’s sculptures, which he later donated to The Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York.  Jo Jo’s works hang in private collections throughout the United States and are shown in prestigious galleries. Major private collectors include the following: Paul Allen (Architect), Joanna Villerrel (Oil Center), Glen Bordelon (Oil Companies), Danny McGlenn & Sally Fox Coclin (Circa 1857). The Oil Center of Lafayette Louisiana displayed several of Jo Jo’s sculptures for sale to wealthy businessmen and collectors who wanted them for their private collections. 

            Shortly after meeting Jo Jo, the late Harry Leo Duran, MD commissioned him to sculpt himself as the Dancing Doctor.  The somewhat small 2 foot tall portrait needed a base which took longer to create.  When the Notorious Doc died of COVID in November 2021, his widow (me) reached out to see if Jo Jo could find a buyer for the work.  He graciously accepted and the I brought the two pieces back down to Vegas to Jo Jo’s studio for him to rework the pieces for sale.  A portrait actually increases in value once the subject passes away. 

UPDATE: MEMORIAL DAY 2024

  JO JO also paints!

To read more about Jo Jo, please click on the links below!

Joseph Jojo Jilbert’s Metalwork Sculpture

http://ilovelasvegasmagazine.blogspot.com/2016/09/dine-among-fine-art-at-therapy-with.html

Therapy to host an Open House for Sculpturist Joseph Jilbert to Benefit St. Jude’s Ranch for Children Sept. 15

https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/entertainment_life/art/article_a9f85d3d-450f-552a-a96f-7eec259bbaf1.html

Visions of Joseph – Renowned scrap-sculptor to open massive art studios space and event venue

https://www.yelmonline.com/stories/metal-whisperer-building-spaceship-ray-gun,106626

The Art of Converting Scrap

When the late Harry Leo Duran, M.D., Ph.D., Mph aka The Notorious Doc died, the last thing I ever imagined was becoming friends with people he knew. One is now my realtor, at least until April 15 when the closing on the condo takes place. After that, I hope we keep in touch because he’s been a huge help in answering questions about what REALLY happened in Vegas.

One is an incredible lady who has offered a lot of publishing advice. One is the famous Metal Whisperer. And one is a very nice fellow who only knew Harry as a Facebook pen pal. So, I find it mind boggling that this poor man who lucid dreams often, should find himself in a hospital dream setting with the following dialogue!

Setting: A hospital in the dream world

Purpose for being there: Visiting a friend.

Action: Moving past people both living and dead. – Joe told me he can’t really tell the difference in dreams unless he focuses on WHO is there..

Doctor rushes past.

Two interns who looked familiar walk up

“Hey! Good to see you here! You wanna go say hi to Liev? ”

One of many of Harry’s nom de plumes was Liev Henrique Duran.

Not realizing if Liev was alive or dead

“Sure where is he?”.

The Interns: “Up in diagnostics . Snakeskin said he wanted to say hi! It’s been a while since you had a chat”.

Joe: “Snakeskin“?

The Interns: “Yea it’s what we call him”.

Two people rush past in an emergency. Joe got startled and woke up.

Earlier one of Harry’s other Facebook friends suggested I restructure the Tell All Book along the lines of Dante’s 9 Circles of Hell. Not a good fit. However, the Eastern Orthodox 20 Aerial Toll Houses works quite well. Coupled with Valentina Blažek’s answers on Quora on how to identify a narcissist. And to add sprinkles on top let’s throw in Jackson MacKenzie’s Psychopath Free: Recovering from Emotionally Abusive Relationships with Narcissists, Sociopaths, and Other Toxic People and Whole Again: Healing Your Heart and Rediscovering Your True Self After Toxic Relationships and Emotional Abuse and his blog post “Why Does it Take So Long to Get Over a Relationship with a Psychopath”?

In his blog post, MacKenzie writes:

You have encountered pure evil

Everything you once understood about people did not apply to this person. During the relationship, you tried to be compassionate, easy-going, and forgiving. You never could have known that the person you loved was actively using these things against you. It just doesn’t make any sense. No typical person is ready to expect that, and so we spend our time projecting a normal human conscience onto them, trying to explain away their inexplicable behavior.

And this leads me to the section in my Tell All Book called

Introduction to the Afterlife of a Narcissist: Testifying Against a Narcissist at Each of the Twenty Aerial Toll Houses

The theological material I have had to wade through to write the Tell All Book is heavy stuff. I need to go for a walk. It truly weighs on the soul. If you, or anyone you know has dreamt about Harry Leo Duran since November 8, 2021, please contact me IMMEDIATELY and don’t forget to leave a comment.

This post is for Joe Reed who asked me about the photo I posted on Facebook.

On Wednesday, March 16, 2022, I got out of the house and drove to Elko. The Western Folklife Center had advertised a night of Celtic music and I wanted to get there early to get a front row seat and a decent parking space. After marking my chair (with my jacket) right next to the little stage area, I asked if I could kill time in the little museum area. During the day, you’re supposed to pay but no one seemed to pay attention so in I went.

On the far wall were paintings of kachinas. Most of the walls were covered with scenes of Western life but his one had kachinas and because no one was around, I burst into giggles. SERIOUSLY, MORE kachinas? It’s not like I don’t have a Butterfly kachina doll in my bedroom, my late husband’s yei rugs, and now etchings downstairs plus a copper plate of one and Yei, but there I was faced with paintings. And the magical Yei ceremonial blanket safely packed away in the back to keep it in its sacred state.

The photos I took have glare from the overhead lights so I went in search of clear images. But before doing that I clicked on the Current Exhibition page and discovered that the Jo Mora Exhibit is only going to be up until April 23! When I got home blathering on about it, no wonder I got a blank stare. These lithographs have only been on the wall for less than a year and they’re not going to be there for much longer!

The embedded video is a bit misleading – Peter Hiller does not work at the folklife center. Click on the image and you’ll download his CV. It’s fascinating. But more than that take a look at the Navajo rug behind his desk. No Talking God.

The exhibit had more information about the prints.

It would be great if all archival material was digitized but alas this one is not. it is the only collection I could find without having access to a research library database. If you’re really interested, you’ll need to contact the University of Tulsa to see if you can make an appointment to view these super rare photographs.

So here are the 8 kachinas that I could find because I just don’t think the photos I took did them justice.

The EIGHT images of Mora’s paintings that were reproduced in offset form are:

1. SHO-YÁNG-EP KÁTCHINA [Left-handed Katchina] (Soyangephoya)

2. HÉU-MISH KÁTCHINA (Hemis) This is the one I took, the link to the Adobe Gallery is broken.

3. TÉU-MAHS KÁTCHINA (Tumas or Crow Mother)

4. MU-SHÁISH KÁTCHINA [Buffalo] (Mosairu) 

5. POO-WHÁ-MUICH KÁTCHINA (Powamu) 

6. SÉE-PEEK-NICH (Sipikne)

7. HEU-MÍSH KÁTCHINA-MANA [Man] (Hemis Kachinmana) 

8. SHE-ÉU-HEU-MISH KÁTCHINA (Sio Hemis)

I’ll keep you posted on what I find out about acquiring a set of these. I hope they don’t cost this much!

And I need to call Marsha Davis at the Lamoille Gallery. She has a collection of kachinas and may not know about this exhibit. JOE please write a long comment about your dream about these please!