Member of the Month: Marliceia Chavers

Many people in Birmingham know Marliceia Chavers as the talented makeup artist behind the beauty brand Marliceia Chavers Artistry. Others may know her as the soulful songstress who often shows off her vocal skills at local lounges. But now Marliceia is striving to make her mark in another arena — lifestyle blogging. Or perhaps I should say “lovestyle” blogging, which is what Marliceia calls her brand of blogging. On November 1, 2017, Marliceia launched Love Marliceia, which chronicles her self-love journey and strives to help readers embark on a self-love journey of their own.

Since launching her new blog, Marliceia has not only been posting and promoting consistently but has gotten the attention of other bloggers, too. She was recently featured on the site Girlfriend’s Budget, where she wrote about how self-love affects your money management.

For these and many other reasons, Marliceia is the See Jane Write Member of the Month for February.

Let’s learn more about her and her “lovestyle” blog. (more…)

28 Days of Grace: A Self-Care Challenge

“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence,

it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” – Audre Lorde

It’s the first day of the month and thus the day I usually share my goals and plans for the month. But I’m doing things differently for February.

Inspired by See Jane Write member Jessica Furniss of Spiffy Eats & Giggle Water, this month I will be focusing on self-care. During the monthly virtual group coaching session that I offer members, Jessica mentioned that it would be great to challenge the Janes to treat themselves to at least one act of self-care every day for 28 days. I loved the idea!

My word for 2017 was “grace” and I’ve mentioned before that my word for this year is “faith,” a word I chose after reading a post by entrepreneur Maya Elious in which she wrote: “They say faith without works is dead but work without faith is dead, too. Too often we WORK for love and WORK for success and WORK WORK WORK. But unless we BELIEVE and have FAITH that God truly wants to see us win, we will always lose.”

It will take faith to give myself grace this month. It will take faith to believe that I can make time for self-care every single day and still somehow find time to work on my book, my blog, and my business and prepare for my TED Talk. But I believe I can and I believe I am worth it.

And so are you.

I invite you to join me in 28 Days of Grace: A Self-Care Challenge. Together we will commit to at least one act of self-care every day for 28 days.

Here are 28 ideas to get you started:

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How to Handle Overwhelm

I have spent most of this month completely overwhelmed and it’s completely my fault.

I came into 2018 with a plan.

I know that I am at my best when I am laser focused on a goal. So this year I planned to set just 4 major writing, blogging, and business goals (in addition to a few personal goals) and I would work on one per quarter.

But the excitement of the New Year went coursing through my veins and settled into my bones and I LOST MY MIND. I decided I would do ALL THE THINGS all at once.

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How to Start a Blog

I love blogging and blogging has loved me back. I’ve been offered paid freelance writing gigs and paid speaking engagements because of my blogs and I’ve used the See Jane Write blog to grow a small women’s writing group into an award-winning business. A blog can also be a great way to build an audience for the book you want to write.

Make 2018 the year you finally launch (or relaunch) your website and blog. Here’s a guide to get you started.

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Member of the Month: Jasmine T. Duff

Photos by Alonzo Richardson of Zoe Rich Photography

Like so many of us once did, Jasmine T. Duff thought she’d have her life totally “together” by age 25. And though she had the degree, the job, and the husband, she found herself plagued with anxiety.

“I had done everything Millennial Southern Belle was supposed to do but it still felt like I was missing the mark,” Jasmine says. “Everything wasn’t clicking like they said it would if you got good grades, read your bible, and went to networking events.”

So she started a blog.

“I decided to take matters into my own hands and pursue my God-given talent,” she says. “I blog about faith, family, feelings, and finances; all the areas of life I strive to do better in.”

She calls her blog Season26.

“I named my blog Season26 because it represents the moment that I let go of that dream and decided to focus on being better,” says Jasmine, now 27. “Better has no end point while we tend to see ‘together’ as a destination, which sets itself up as a feat we can never truly achieve.”

Lately, Jasmine has been working diligently to build her blog and a community around it by hosting in-person and virtual events and maintaining an active Facebook group. This is why she is the January See Jane Write Member of the Month.

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