"Far and Wee"

This late-night posting is just a short note to say that the tutorials I mentioned in my last postings haven’t happened yet. My own physical ailments and the busy life of my niece kept us from being able to get a start on scaling my learning curve.However, we are both hoping that October will bring those much needed lessons in how to market through social media.

In the meantime, I’m doing the final bits and pieces for the convent memoir: table of contents, ISBN/copyright page, acknowledgements, note from the author, back-cover copy, author blurb for back cover, memoir blurb for Amazon. Well, I suspect you get my drift—all those parts of the book that accompany the main text.

During the writing of the many drafts of the memoir, I used simply “Chapter 1,” Chapter 2,” “Chapter 3,” etc. to label each new chapter. Now I am rereading the chapters, trying to find four words or less for a “catchy” title for each. That’s not easy for someone like myself who tends to say more, rather than less. (You may have noticed this in my writing!)

The back-cover copy for the print book pretty much becomes the book summary that appears on a book’s Amazon page. That’s the summary that begins with three lines or so and then a “Read More.” With that copy, I need to present the arc of the book as I build suspense and tension. I find that no easy task.

I hope to return this week to reading your blogs because I find myself missing what is happening in your lives. I have such a quiet life, bordering on reclusive. All of you introduce me to the world beyond the chair I’m sitting in, the computer I’m staring at, and the home in which the cats and I are living. Thank you for enriching my life with your posted words.

Enough for now. Glass Houses, Louise Penny’s latest mystery, has kept me awake way past my bedtime.  She has become my favorite writer. The wonder is that each of her books just keeps getting better.

If you like mysteries and she’s not on your reading list, I’d suggest that you start with her first book, Still Life, which introduces the ensemble that you’ll meet in each succeeding book. Chief Inspector Armand Gamache is one of the most finely drawn characters I’ve meet in all the reading of done through the years.  

So in this posting we’ve traveled “far and wee” as the poet e.e.cummings would say. From ailments and learning curves to book parts to Amazon summaries to one of the most gifted novelists of today. Now I hope that when I post this and turn off this computer (“Maggie”), I will find sleep patiently waiting for me by my pillow. Peace.

Tutorials Ahead

Hello All,

The photo of me is from kindergarten where I was named "Bright Eyes" when we studied the Native American culture.

Right now I'm studying Bronze-Age Greece as I work on a novel about that period.

But the news for this week is that I'm taking time off from posting and reading blogs so as to concentrate on learning how to promote my writing.

Two friends are helping me with the self-publishing of two manuscripts, and they are also giving me tutorials on how to use social media effectively so as to market the self-published books.

This is going to be a steep learning curve for me as I tend to block new technology. Also, the ole noggin doesn't work as swiftly as it used to!

I'll be back to posting when I have something to share about all this.

Peace to all of you, pressed down and overflowing.

And All Shall Be Well

Last night, I turned off the bedside lamp at 11:00 PM and immediately fell into a deep sleep. Then, at 4:30 AM, I woke and tossed and turned for about fifteen minutes. Finally, I rose, made myself a cup of herbal tea that might help me get back to sleep, and began reading, hoping my eyes would grow heavy again. The e-book that so engrosses me right now is the latest by Peter Robinson. It’s “Sleeping in the Ground,” an Inspector Banks mystery.

I was near its ending last night when I began to nod off. So this morning, I wanted to finish it. Normally I get up late—8:30, 9:00, 9:30—and sometimes as late as 10 AM. That’s because my body craves nine hours of sleep a night, and normally I don’t turn off the light until 1 or 1:30 AM. However, I’m trying to get onto a new cycle: go to bed early, rise early.

That’s become important as I’m feeling more and more the urge to begin writing again. The convent memoir manuscript is complete and an artist friend is designing the cover. My hope is that I can self-publish it in the next six months. Moreover, I have another cat book—a tongue-in-cheek fantasy accompanied by delightful art—that I hope to self-publish during that same time. This might seem that I’ve been writing, but actually I’ve done nothing this year. I’ve listened to my body and its need for rest. I’ve done what my good friend Judy has always advised: “Go with the flow, Dee.” And so I do; and so I’ve done.

This morning, as I began once again to read Robinson’s latest mystery, I felt myself drawn inward to that still place where Oneness dwells. Words came to me then: “And all shall be well. And all shall be well. And all manner of things shall be exceeding well.”

These words got me through the eighteen terrifying months of Meniere’s back in 2006-2007. They are the words of Julian of Norwich, an English anchorite and mystic of the late 14^th and early 15^th century. As Wikipedia informs us, “Her Revelations of Divine Love, written around 1395, is the first book in the English language known to have been written by a woman.”

I’ve said her words in the midst of acute rotational vertigo episodes with Meniere’s, said them as I’ve felt the pain of four bulging lumbar discs resting on sciatic nerves, as I’ve struggled to feel at home in Missouri, as I’ve worried about our latest presidential election, as I’ve lived through the death of seven close friends in the past three years, as I’ve given up driving because of my compromised vision.

In other words, Julian’s wisdom comes to me in times of stress when I’m not sure where to turn for comfort and peace. They also come to me when I worry about those I love who are facing life’s vicissitudes—like Hurricane Harvey. And yes, they come to me when I feel the joy of being loved.

The truth is that those words—which came so spontaneously to my lips one afternoon in September 2006 when a Meniere’s episode thrust me to the floor and I banged my head against the dining-room hutch—have been pure gift from the past. I do not remember when I first met or memorized them, but they remain one of the purest gifts I've ever received. They have seen me through the valleys of the past ten years and been with me when I’ve ascended to the mountain tops. The truth of them enlightens my life and keeps me positive about all that is and all that will be in the span of my years.

“All shall be well. And all shall be well. And all manner of things shall be exceedingly well.”

Yes, all has worked out to good within my life. I trust it will continue to do so. It is with great gratitude and love that I tell you I’ve lived long years and the gift of that longevity is the knowledge that all works out to good. Peace.

Wikipedia photograph of statue of Julian at the Norwich Cathedral.

A Hope for Now

For the past four weeks, I’ve published postings about where I am emotionally with regard to my life and my writing. Today’s posting sums that up and adds my conclusions.

After Crown published A Cat’s Life: Dulcy’s Story in 1992, I began to dream big dreams about my success as a writer. In the next two decades, however, as I tried to interest agents in representing my writing, I received only rejection e-mails. Slowly reality dawned.

I realized that the Universe was trying to teach me to let go of the outcomes I’d envisioned. Slowly I learned that I could control the way I responded to events, but I couldn’t control my unrealistic expectations.

Joseph Campbell, who studied, wrote, and lectured his entire life about the power of myth, once said, “Follow your bliss.” I have treasured that quotation. Often I’ve suggested it to others, but never have I truly lived it.

I didn’t follow my bliss—which is simply writing. Instead, I let my dream of being published and becoming successful become an all-consuming obsession. I embraced the outcomes, not the writing. Not the nutritious home-baked bread, but the slathered butter. Not the cake, but the frosting.

Recently a blogging friend sent me a card with the following Campbell quotation on it:

       We must be willing
        to let go of the life
       we had planned.

       So as to have the life
       that is waiting for us.

Her sending that card helped me find perspective and pretty well summed up what many of you have written in your comments for my postings.

And so I begin.

For many decades of my life, I changed, took risks, welcomed differences. If I could do that when I was younger, there’s no reason I can’t do it now. In order to do that, however, I must listen again to that inner voice of intuition I’ve ignored for so long. I must open my heart to that voice.

I’m ready to quit living in the future of my dream world. I’m ready to live in the present and await whatever beckons me. Writing for publication? Perhaps. Finding a new passion? Maybe. Finding books to read on subjects I don’t normally read? Possibly. Working to make daily exercise habitual? Hope so. Making new friends? How wonderful. I know one thing only: I’m letting go of my attachment to the outcomes of my own planning. I’m ready to simply be.

What will this surrender to life look like?  I hope writing will be a part of it, but I suspect that there are surprises ahead for me. That’s something to which I look forward. And yet, I must admit to some trepidation.

Perhaps, those two poles—expectation and trepidation—as well as the span between them are what I’ll be blogging about. Who knows? I surely don’t.

Peace.