Karlyle Tomms: You Can Overcome, Never Give Up

Karlyle Tomms is today's guest on The Segilola Salami Show podcast. Karlyle is an author who shares with us his writing journey thus far and what he's learned from it. I assure you, you need to click play now to listen to this most intriguing conversation with Karlyle Tomms.
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About Karlyle Tomms
I am an award winning author. My first novel, "Confessions from the Pumpkin Patch" was also endorsed by Marideth Sisco who was instrumental in the soundtrack for and had a role in the four time Oscar nominated film, "Winter's Bone" starring Jennifer Lawrence.
My books are about life's misfits, those who have been rejected by society, those who try to find a place in the world after experiencing difficult and traumatic lives, and those who find themselves and overcome in that process. My books are set historically in the 1960's and 70's. The fourth novel, when it is finished, will come up into the 1990's. These are not only books about a protagonist who struggles to overcome intense adversity, but are also glimpses into the history and culture of the time. I take great care to research the timelines in which my characters live and also depict what was going on around them during those times in our recent history.
 
Karlyle Tomms's tips, based on his experiences, on How to love yourself and hold your head up, no matter who you are or what you have been through.

* I have overcome. I am a gay man, orphaned and raised in rural poverty in a fundamentalist religion during the 1960's. I have experience bullying, abuse, and intense self-loathing. I have struggled to overcome and accept myself, love myself for who I am for most of my life.
* When I was 18 years old, my first year of college, I immediately sought therapy. It was a time when the world was still struggling with accepting gay people, and a few of those therapists attempted to convert me, but it was my spiritual mentors who brought me to the point of loving myself for who I am. Eventually therapy caught up, but the main thing I did was to have the faith to know that there was a better way of living, the commitment to find it and a willingness not to give up. I learned spiritual principles that helped me to overcome and accept myself, and I continue to apply those spiritual principles.
* My novels are entertaining, but there are moments of edification scattered throughout the stories. My novels are graphic. I don't hold back, because life doesn't hold back. My novels are heartwarming-eventually- and ultimately they are stories about love.
* Many of the customer reviews of my books are from readers who say they were immediately drawn into the stories and had a hard time putting it down. I realize that is cliche, but I write powerful stories about powerful people who do not realize initially that they are powerful. A good novel never reveals all the secrets until the end and saves the best secret for last. I have had people tell me that they cried at the end, in a good and heartwarming way. Perhaps the best compliment I ever got, in my opinion, about my writing is the comment on one of the magazine articles I wrote back in the 1990's, "You have the ability to reach into a person's soul, pull their guts out, hold them up and say, ‘Look at this! These are your guts!'" What I can promise is that my stories are never mundane.
* A paragraph from Chapter 8 of "The Calling Dream": Terror crossed Momma’s face, and a wail came out of her like an animal caught in a steel trap. She fell half to her knees on the floor, sobbing and grabbing at the air like her very soul was b...