Tag: amwriting

Day 9 Lenten Meditation: Community



According to researchers (Grouzet et al, 2005), community is a universal goal across cultures. It appears not just a goal, but a need. Matthew Lieberman, in his book Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect (2013) cites thousands of research articles to make the case that we were born craving community. 

How do we get community? Some get it through church, others through clubs and volunteer work. Some get it at their favorite coffeehouse or bar. Many of us get it online, but there we have to struggle with antagonism as well, destroying our sense of community. 

Against community, we have no way to define ourselves. We have nobody to turn to when we are suffering, nobody to take care of us when we are sick, no one to celebrate with when we triumph. Even introverts need community — perhaps one person at a time.

Where is your community?



Grouzet, F., Kasser, T., Ahuvia, A., Fernandez-Dols, J., Kim, Y., Lau, S.,Ryan, R., Saunders, S., Schmuck, P., Sheldon, K. (2005). The structure of goal contents across 15 cultures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 89. 800-16. 10.1037/0022-3514.89.5.800. 

Lieberman, M. (2013). Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect. Crown Publishing.

Day 8 Lenten Meditation: Silence


How do we know ourselves if not for silence? We only know our outward selves — our careers, our social networks, our consumer-driven wants and needs. With silence we lose our external selves for a moment, and find our internal one. And then we pass beyond self to the big Unity, the center of silence.

There are many ways to find silence. Unplugging from the phone, meditating, silent worship, walking alone in a peaceful place. Anything that quiets not only the external but the internal chatter, our constant defining of the world.

As a Quaker, I am accustomed to silent worship. We believe that in the silence, The Divine speaks to us. Silence isn’t only reserved for worship, but in everyday life. We believe that we must live simple lives so that there’s undistracted space for us to listen to our small, still voice. That’s another type of silence.

A little bit of silence is my prescription to you.

Day 7 Lenten Meditation: Dust



We have a natural antipathy to dust, perhaps because it’s something we can’t control. Dust is ubiquitous. Dust exceeds our ability to clean as it sparkles in the sun drifting through windows. 

Dust symbolizes the useless and unclean. In the Bible, the Apostles were instructed to knock the dust of inhospitable towns from their sandals on the way out. (This is especially noteworthy as feet were seen as unclean in that culture.) Dusting is a regular part of housecleaning, and neglecting to do it will raise the scorn of neighbors.

Dust inspires poetry about death and mortality. “Unto dust you shall return …” declares the Roman Catholic mass on Ash Wednesday. 

We do not like to think about dust. We will never love dust, and that is fine. We will fight dust, like we fight filth, like we fight against death.

But in the end, it will win. 


Day 5 Lenten Meditation: Sanctuary

We all need a place to feel safe. 

Whether safety means the need to get away from a hard day at work, a sense of loss from trauma, or an immediate threat to one’s well-being, sanctuary is necessary.

Some find sanctuary in a closed door, a meditation session, or a safe community. Some find sanctuary in writing, or art, or other engrossing activity. Some find sanctuary in family or friends, or in religion.

Inside each of us, no matter how old we are, is our memory of childhood, which was safe or not safe, That part of fears the unknown as something dangerous. That young self yearns for sanctuary. 


We can’t stay in sanctuary forever, because if we do, we are fugitives from live. Nobody needs to be safe forever. But it’s good that sanctuary is there when we feel threatened.

Day 4 Lenten Meditation: Passion



My idea of a creation story for this earth: The world was created in a burst of passion, with the raw materials for life combining in a great explosion of potentiality. 


Passion brings worlds into being.

When I write passionately, I create dystopias at times, but I plant the seeds for reclamation. 

Passion makes us reach out for justice.

When I see a kindred spirit, I feel passion for their presence.

Passion to live turns every day into love.

When I am most passionate, I come to know myself better.

Passion infuses us with becoming.




Novel in need of resuscitation.




I’m contemplating scrapping a novel.

Gaia’s Hands, my first book, needs so much help. I can’t even explain why, except that it just isn’t up to my standards. The B story (Jeanne and Josh’s relationship) doesn’t feel quite right. The A story needs a few adjustments. The magic seems intermittent and just wedged in.

All in all, I am frustrated with this story, even though I’ve rewritten it so many times it’s ridiculous.

It’s down to a short novel. Maybe if I cut enough, it can be a novella. I don’t see it getting larger again. 

Wish me luck.

The Day I Became an Introvert. (Personal)

All my life I thought I was an extrovert. I loved hugging people, I loved being around big crowds of people, I loved to talk. But then, when I passed through one of my frequent depressions, I felt like crawling into a hole and not talking to anyone.

Fast forward over a diagnosis of bipolar II, and a life change with medication, sleep protocols, and other lifestyle changes (no alcohol), and my moods are stable. However, I’ve discovered what I thought was natural extroversion was actually my hypomanic moods, and my normal state was introversion.



Yesterday, my psychiatrist agreed that I am, indeed, an introvert.

This may be one of the hardest adjustments to make with my bipolar — that some of what I regarded as natural aspects of my personality were actually traits fueled by chemical imbalance. This adjustment is harder than it sounds — I find myself quoting a Myers-Briggs score from 20 years ago that is no longer valid, and it hits me with a small shock. 

What will it mean for me to be an introvert? 

Revisiting the Goals at the End of February (Goal-setting)

Here’s my writing goals list for the year as of today:

Goal Sheet:
Short-term:

  •  Develop a platform plan by March 1, 2020
  • Revise Whose Hearts are Mountains via developmental edit by March 1, 2020
  • Send 30 queries for Whose Hearts are Mountains by March 1, 2020
  •  Send 30 queries for Whose Hearts are Mountains by April 1, 2020
  • Send 30 queries for Whose Hearts are Mountains by May 1, 2020
  •  Send 50 queries for Gaia’s Hands by December 1, 2020
  • Write/submit 5 short stories/poems/flash fiction by December 31, 2020
    • Inner Child – January 30
    • Kel and Brother Coyote Make a Deal – February 15  

Long-Term:

  • Develop idea for next novel 
  • Get an agent 
  • Discuss with agent further books
  • Publish my first book 
  • Develop personal sales presence


I guess I’m not doing too badly. 

Short-term goals tend to build into longer-term goals, and long-term goals can build on each other. I’m currently working on the “getting an agent” part through queries, and if I get an agent to take me on, the queries section of the short-term goals will likely resolve itself. Publishing the book, on the other hand, will take years once I have a publisher, so it’s really long-term.
Personal sales presence is something I can’t really develop (other than developing a platform, which I am doing).

And I have ideas for a next novel. Almost too many, given that I’ve been advised to focus my efforts on shorter fiction. But I’ll pick one by NaNoWriMo (November), then start writing it.

I may have to come up with more goals at this rate. 







A Glimmer of Success

Yesterday, an agent asked to see my full manuscript for the first time. Mind you, I have sent out hundreds of queries for my five novels. 

Let me be honest — I have sent out queries for books that I hadn’t sent through developmental edit or beta reading. I have sent out queries not knowing how to write a query letter. I have, rightly, gotten rejections.

I have learned a lot from my failures. The visual above doesn’t really show the road to success because it doesn’t incorporate learning from failure. One can work hard but wrong, and all that effort means nothing. 

This is not to say that I will get an agent out of this. I could get rejected by the other 27 agents I have queries out to. The agent who has my manuscript might pass. Hard work and learning from failures may not be enough. The book might just be “not what we’re looking for”.

But it’s a glimmer of hope, a glimmer of success. I’ll take it.