✍The First Page & Interview: ARISE & WALK by S.M. Adams





ARISE & WALK

by S.M. Adams

Whatever challenge you may currently be facing, Arise & Walk: From the Sidelines of Life to the Next Level offers a proven framework to assist you in making that much needed life transformation.

During the pandemic with her classroom shuttered S.M. Adams an experienced educator and instructor shifted her focus from teaching adolescents to creating a different kind of lesson plan, one to help survivors of the Covid 19 pandemic and its devastating aftermath, reimagine and reinvent themselves.

Always a teacher first, this new author with over a decade’s experience in New York City classrooms uses verbal imagery, examples from her own life along with interesting analogies to make clear the mindset shifts and action steps which lead to a transformed life.

So, if you’re unsure of what to do, look no further.

Arise & Walk: From the Sidelines of Life to the Next Level will help you to think about:

  • How to begin to process change
  • How to emotionally and mentally deal with downscaling
  • Whether to continue with the old venture or start something new
  • Which relationships to embrace and lean into as you undergo a life change
  • How to clear the path to accomplish new money goals

and

  • How to better manage time in a way that suits the new you.

 


 


In March 2020 the world faced a new thing—Covid-19. It was and is an unexpected, unwanted thing.

With the new year just months old, a deadly, contagious virus led the way into a once-in-a-century pandemic.

Devastating and unapologetic in the way it changed lives, Covid-19 brought the world to its knees. Agendas, programs, and schedules were suddenly discarded and abandoned.

For months until mitigation efforts were decided upon, it seemed we were all benched like players waiting for the whistle to blow. 

In the end, forward movement could only be made if we adjusted and adapted.

New rules and new procedures were put in place of once routine tasks.

The upheaval and discomfort of these changes rattled some folks, many of whom resisted boisterously and belligerently.

I did not.

Instead, I folded and conformed into the change.

I had never experienced a pandemic before, but I was familiar with the need to pivot.

What many people considered disruption was familiar to me.

My life had always been littered with unexpected challenges.

I knew what it felt like to be suddenly sidelined, waiting and watching as time marched on.

And so as the pandemic raged, I simply did what I knew worked during these times.

I began to reposition myself. 

Like a player seated on a bench during halftime, I planned for the rest of the match and prepared for the whistle to blow. 



Welcome to the blog! The first page is perhaps one of the most important pages in the whole book. It’s what draws the reader into the story. Why did you choose to begin your book this way?

I chose to begin the book this way because it provides a context for the book by describing the times which gave birth to it-the coronavirus pandemic.

In the course of writing your book, how many times would you say that first page changed and for what reasons? 

About three times

Was there ever a time after the book was published that you wished you had changed something on the first page? 

No, by then I was pretty settled on it.

What advice can you give to aspiring authors to stress how important the first page is? 

Write the entire book and then go back and write the first page because the first page sets the course for where the book is going but you never really know that until the book is finished.





S.M. Adams
 is a licensed secondary school teacher and experienced college instructor with over 10 years’ experience in the field of education.  She holds graduate training in both American History and Adolescent Education. A confessed late bloomer Sarah returned to college as a student-parent to uncover her life’s passion for education and helping others. For years of community service and volunteer work, S.M Adams was awarded the prestigious New York Life fellowship from the Colin Powell Center for Leadership and Service in 2008 and received the Phoenix Award from Urban Resource Institute thereafter. She also briefly spent time on the policy committee of HEAASC, the Higher Education Alliance for Advocates of Students with Children. As a domestic violence advocate, she has appeared on NYC Fox 5, NYC Bronx 12 as well as in Marie Claire magazine. A graduate of City College of New York and Pace University this New York transplant by way of Jamaica W.I. loves the summertime, reading on the beach, eating mangoes and spending time with her son and husband.

Arise and Walk: From the Sidelines of Life to the Next Level is her latest book.

Visit her website at www.ariseandwalk.com. Connect with her on TwitterInstagram and Facebook.

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