• My Office
    The Sacred Arts,  Writing

    NaNoWriMo: Crawling Out of the Hole to Say Hello

    For those of you who don’t know, November is NaNoWriMo, short for National Novel Writing Month. What, you ask, in the holy hell is that? Well, it’s just as scary as it sounds — especially as I am a participant this year. NaNoWriMo was created by a group of sadomasochists ambitious people who knew, just knew that they could write a 50,000 word novel in a month if only they sacrificed every waking second toward this endeavor. Then, they spread the punishment idea around the internet, and gullible hacks overachievers like me thought to themselves, “Hey, I am already spending every waking hour writing copy and articles and looking for…

  • Freedom!
    Damn the Man,  This is Me

    Freedom is the Best

    My days have gotten much more palatable since getting laid off in July. Rather than squeezing tiny drops of enjoyment from things like my drive home from work and stolen moments of frantic writing, I now look forward to every day. Every damn day. It seems a little excessive, huh? Granted, not every day is a cake walk (a couple of hours job searching in this economy is enough to crush even the chipperest of souls). But since deciding to go the freelance route, basically I wake up every morning excited. I love my first cup of coffee of the day, steaming and bold. While sipping those first precious drops of my…

  • breeze
    Damn the Man,  The Sacred Arts,  Writing

    Saving the World, One Poem at a Time

    I just wrote a post that left me in tears. How could I publish something so ranty, so raw and so potentially argument provoking? I hit save, closed my laptop, and walked away to have my cry out. Here I am again. I’m very upset over not just the government shutdown and the lives in turmoil because of it, but over the reactions of people I know. I have never seen such vitriol, such a lack of compassion. It gets to me. But after a good cry and a good think, I decided that the world doesn’t need another rant from someone who has been hurt by what’s going on…

  • Happy
    Depression is a Bitch,  General Lunacy

    Rough Drafts & Neuroses

    I have written and trashed two posts today. That makes this post number three. Yep, I am still chugging along, thinking I’m going to get something worthwhile written. I don’t know what’s wrong with me today, or why I feel like I NEED to get something up on here, but I have my suspicions… It’s partly because I don’t like leaving my fiction in the number one slot for too long. I don’t want someone to visit here and think that’s my real life (even if I’ve labeled the post “Fiction” in the title. People are not to be trusted). It’s also because I’ve been feeling weird lately. No, I’m…

  • Sally Field
    The Sacred Arts,  Writing

    Blogiversary: Unexpected Lessons from One Year of Blogging

    On August 4th, 2012, this space was born. I was away on vacation last week, so we’re celebrating late. Sorry, sweet little blog. I have thought about what I would say in this post often the past year. Much like an actress practicing her Academy Award speech after her first so-so B-film, I thought about what I’d reveal; how much I’ve learned, how much I’ve grown, who I’d thank, etc., etc. Of course, blogging has been a different experience than I’d expected, so I’ve retooled the speech a few times along the way. I’m not a famous, self-supporting writer; rather, I’m a niche-less blogger, one-among-many. Not that I expected otherwise,…

  • lake
    Writing

    Being Back

    I took an unexpected vacation last week. After BlogHer, a trip I’m still processing because I’m a slow learner when it comes to emotional stuffage, I felt very adrift, clinging to my sense of self with one hand. With no job, and thus no paycheck, to validate my worth as a human being (ESPECIALLY an American); with no one beating down my door to publish my writing and confirm my skill with words; with no husband to at least hug me at the end of the day when I felt like a loser, I fled from my life like a refugee from a war-torn country and joined Mike on his…

  • Alcohol and Sobriety,  Writing

    My First Publication: Huffington Post!

    For those not following me on social media, you may not have heard me screaming about my article featured in the Huffington Post today. Let me just tell you, it was so hard to send the email submitting that story. I sat at my computer for about two hours, editing and re-editing everything, asking my cat, “Should I send it?”; yelling to Mike from my office, “I’m scared. I don’t know if I can do it.” I finally got over myself, held my breath, and clicked “send.” I have struggled to articulate this complex story for months now. My relationship with my ex, alcohol, has many moving parts, many explanations,…

  • The Sacred Arts,  Writing

    Synchronicity

    Synchronicity.  Though not an entirely new concept to me, it’s one I’ve been exploring and experiencing lately. No, I did not just come up with this on my own – I may be creative, but I’m not that creative. I first encountered this term studying Jung, then really started contemplating it while practicing The Artist’s Way. Yes, I studied Jung, he’s my favorite psychotherapist. Leave me alone. Synchronicity for this purpose is the idea that it is natural to create and be creative, and as such God (or the universe, or the Force, or whatever) delights in creation, and will provide whatever you need for productive creativity. Now. I know this whole concept sounds…

  • Depression is a Bitch,  The Sacred Arts,  Writing

    Why I Am No Longer Advertising

    Last November, I made the decision to advertise this little blog a few places, hoping that I’d gain new readers and wider exposure. Six months was the internal deadline I set for myself when I started, knowing that at that point I’d reevaluate my financial situation, the blog’s statistical data and my ROI. Yeah, I can rock the financial lingo with the best of them. Well, there I was at the six month mark last week. In the weeks leading up to it, I’d been thinking a lot about whether or not to pull the plug, and I went into a tailspin of self-doubt because that is part of my…

  • Writing

    Blogging Genesis

    This blog started out as a life-preserver I threw myself. Going to school for something much grander than what I ended up doing, I settled for a menial job instead of a mentally stimulating, challenging career; the absolute last scenario I envisioned when planning out my life, but I’ve heard it said that life isn’t all that interested in your plans, nor your Herculean efforts to make them reality. Sometimes the economy crashes and your chosen field of work disappears. Sometimes you end up with strange flesh-eating viruses that cut your life short. Sometimes loved ones die. Sometimes you have to do shit you don’t want to do in order…

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