Spirit Bowls

I create pieces of art that serve any number of purposes. You can take this soft, crocheted "basket", that I call a Spirit Bowl, with you on trips to adorn your motel room and hold keys, cell phone... or crunch it up in your backpack on a camping trip. It can be a spiritual container to carry treasured items of meaning and used for personal ritual. I label, bless and smudge each one so they are imbued with prayer and positive energy. They are for sale through my website.

Creative Fire

The creative fire is coursing through me and I am bursting with ideas for things to create. I crochet Spirit Bowls, I knit altar cloths and soul mats, I knit and felt bags, I journal and I write, and I create retreat and workshop experiences for people... The creative flow of ideas and making things with my hands is such a life-giving energy which gives my life a full and rich quality, akin to spiritual nourishment. What are you creating these days? What ideas keep you up at night? How does that enrich your life?

Showing up and doing the work helps you do the work

Today, I did a read aloud and book signing at our local Barnes & Noble. Folks loved the passages I read and were ready with questions. We had a very lively discussion. I then signed and sold several books. These are the things I learned: 1) always tell people what your book is about when they ask; 2) it helps to go around and invite people to come to your signing, people will come; 3) when you reach out and engage with people they will respond and often buy your book; 4) no matter how small the audience, you are getting experience at engaging with audiences and honing your speech. I've learned to appreciate every venue, every book sold, every opportunity to talk to a potential reader. There's no room for being discouraged!

My feet in two worlds

I often feel that I am straddling the gap between heaven and earth. As a spiritual person, a minister, a contemplative, a writer I think more in terms of heaven. It's the earthly tasks of life, like dishes and vacuuming and stacking wood for the wood stove (we heat our house exclusively with wood) and doing the grunt work of getting things done to contribute to the income making mechanisms of our family, that evade me while I "have my head in the clouds". Understandably this frustrates my practical, businessman husband. How is it that he has to do all the hard work while I star gaze? Somehow it's my purpose to be a holder of things soul and spirit, but that doesn't always pay the bills. So, I am forever seeking that balance as I try to keep both my feet stable in their different worlds. Does anyone else out there struggle with this in their lives?

How does a writer justify her work if she is not getting paid yet?

I feel squeezed in a vice of needing to follow this calling to write another book and yet having expenses, on the book I'm currently marketing and trying to sell, that need to be paid off. I am not yet making enough money on my first book to justify spending time to write the second book (the sequel to the first one). I feel caught in a sort of catch 22. How do we do this, writers? How do we justify this job of writing when we are not being paid for it (yet)? Can we live on our faith that our books will sell and pay day will come some day? Please help me by sharing your stories of dealing with this dilemma.

I'm going to a Writer's Conference

I am signed up to attend a Writer's Conference this weekend (Breathe Christian Writer's Conference in West Michigan). I hope to learn about how to use the social network for marketing, about techniques for writing a second novel as I get ready to start writing the sequel to my first novel, Lillie's Redemption, and about agents and book publicity. Getting together with other writers, authors and speakers is going to be helpful to my process at this point. I'll share what I learn. Stay tuned.

Faith is required in marketing a book

Marketing a book is a very different thing than writing a book. Marketing takes a combination of making things happen, doing the "leg work", and letting go and allowing things to germinate. This "get-it-done-let-it-go" thing is a little tough at times. Germination - (people reading and passing on my book and thinking about it and telling others about it and eventually those others buy it and read it and they tell others...) is mostly invisible to the author. I get very little feedback on how people feel about my book or who is buying and reading it. When I do get feedback, I treasure it and file it away (in my "feedback file" and in my heart). I try to live on the encouragement that comes from the bits of feedback I get and the tiny amounts of evidence that my book is circulating. I try to keep plugging in doing the "leg work" and getting my book out there all the while I try to let go of the organic process underway, let go of the results. It's like driving in complete darkness and having the faith to know you are on the road. So, I plug on trying to stay positive and hopeful and keep the faith while everyday I wait for things to take off!