I’m happy to welcome author April Farlow. Today, April shares her creative journey and new release, Pieces of You.

Here’s April!

What was your inspiration for this book?

10 years ago, I started working with young adults who aged out of foster care through an organization I founded called Lydia’s Place (www.lydias-place.com). I saw the pain they experienced from the broken relationship with their parents and how much it impacted their faith. Repeatedly, I shared advice from my parents with them and decided it would be helpful to put it in a book. My dad was a businessman from Mississippi and shared these one-line truths that are sprinkled throughout the book.

As a corporate trainer for twenty years, I have used truths from my dad in classes and speeches repeatedly. We had an hour commute to get to school each morning and my dad used that time intentionally to talk to me about important life topics. He ended each conversation as I would get out of the car the exact same way, “remember who you are and remember whose you are.” Since our relationship with our Earthly Father impacts the relationship we have with our Heavenly Father, I use these stories to help the reader discover who they are and whose they are and hope it will feel a lot like we are riding in the car together as I tell the “pieces” of my story.

What is the best part of being an author? The worst?

The best part of being an author is seeing my stories in print because I know they are captured for my kids and family. The hardest part is that I share some of the intimate parts of my life and so it feels vulnerable when I know people know some of the “pieces” of my life that have been hard.

Describe your writing space.

My writing space would be funny for anyone else to walk into. I write at my dining room and usually have papers spread out all over the place with ideas and lists. It is messy – and even when I clean it up, I tend to mess it back up because that is when I feel most creative! I also record myself saying a lot of my stories in the car, so you could say my writing space includes my drive time which usually happens on the way to/from speaking engagements or driving my kids to their activities.

Which authors have inspired you?

I spent a few days at a writers retreat with Bob Goff (Everybody, Always; Undistracted; Dream Big) and Kimberly Stuart (Stars for Jesus and Other Jobs I Quit; Balancing Act; Bottom Line; Better Together). I am always inspired by their words, but also by their passion for helping other people write!

What is your favorite quote?

I have two:
“Be the Change you wish to see in the world.” Ghandi
“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them fee.” Maya Angelou

If you had a superpower, what would it be?

Whether it is a superpower or not is to be determined, but I am pretty good at awkward conversations. I have taught communications as a corporate trainer for years and I find I use so much of what I teach in my personal life as well. This means that when there has to be a hard conversation, I am often the one who says what needs to be said. This can be both a gift and a challenge at times.

Besides writing and reading, what are some of your hobbies?

I have 4 girls and so their activities become my activities as well. My youngest girls love dance and theater, so I spend a lot of time in their world. I also have a mini farm with horses, chickens, rabbits and hope to have some mini-cows soon!

Any advice for aspiring writers?

Yes! Two things helped me tremendously:

1. Get a writing coach. It helped me be accountable to a timeline and get my ideas collected with the help of someone else sharing what made the most impact, rather than the story I wanted to say the most.

2. The advice that Sara Shelton, my writing coach, shared with me is something I would share with anyone. Get a box of index cards and write down every idea you have about the topic for two months. Then, use those cards to organize an outline. This one activity was a game changer for me!

What are you working on next?

Two things: I plan to host women’s events for the book so that other women can share their stories. For writing, next, I would like to share the story of how my oldest daughter joined our family from Legos, Nigeria. Maria grew up in extreme poverty. We met at a camp when I was speaking in Orlando and she had gotten a scholarship to learn and take back information to her school. Maria came to live with us eight years ago and is currently getting her PhD at the University of Houston. I am inspired by Maria and we have learned a lot along the way as we have merged two very different worlds.

Blurb

Knowing who you are has always been challenging, and in today’s world, more and more voices are coming from more and more places telling us who we should be. The result? A broken sense of identity that we’re struggling to put back together.

In Pieces of You, April Farlow shares how she discovered her identity is formed by the God who made her. Along the way, she’s learned that if we want to put the pieces of who we are together in a real, lasting way, we have to look to Whose we are for help.

It’s time to take a look at the unique pieces that make up who you are …

The pieces you compare …
The pieces informed by the father figure in your life …
The painful pieces …
The pieces of your relationships …
The pieces on which you’ve built your beliefs …
The pieces that give you rules and boundaries …
The pieces that show what you value …
The pieces that give you purpose …
The pieces that help you build a vision for what’s to come.

As we work to put those pieces together, we’ll look to the God who made us, knows us, and loves us to guide us. Because when you take all your pieces—the good, the bad, the broken, and the beautiful—and place them in your Heavenly Father’s hands, there, you’ll find peace. There, you’ll find security. There, you’ll find a real sense of who you are and Whose you are.

Excerpt

Over just a few hours, my Kaleidoscopes began to lean into each other’s stories. Things got real fast. And I think that’s because we took a break from measuring ourselves against each other. Instead of comparing, we chose to share.

And that’s a great place to start.

To stand confidently in both who you are and Whose you are, you must first learn to avoid the temptation to compare. Staying out of the comparison trap is an essential piece of the puzzle that is discovering and embracing our identity.

After our meeting, my friend Angela went home and looked in her daughter’s school folder. There, she found a worksheet her seven-year-old, Elle, had filled out. “Color yourself and then write words to describe yourself in the circles,” the instructions said across the top. That’s precisely what Elle did. She colored her hair and eyes to match hers and wrote six words to describe herself.

Funny
Artistic
Pretty
Love
Kind
Smart

For Angela, her daughter’s list was not only accurate, but it was also a stark contrast to the list she and the other women had made. Angela told me about it later: “I wonder at what age we stop believing the good? I wonder what happens to cause us to begin seeing the negative before the positive?”

I wonder the same for all of us.

Author Bio and Links

April Farlow has spent the last 20 years motivating audiences to get out of their comfort zone, speak up, and represent their values. In corporate environments, one piece is missed—the ability to talk about forming your identity in God. Today, as a speaker, author, coach, and non-profit leader, April is changing this by sharing her faith journey and helping others do the same with clarity and conviction.

In 2017, after speaking to a group of foster youth, April founded Lydia’s Place, a ministry serving young adults who have experienced foster care or homelessness. April and her husband have four girls and live on a mini-farm outside of Athens, Georgia.

Website | Instagram

Giveaway

April Farlow will be awarding a $15 Amazon/Barnes & Noble gift card to a randomly drawn winner. Find out more here.

Follow April on the rest of her Goddess Fish tour here.