Tag: Writing a Book

This is a writing accountability blog. I have committed to publishing a book by March, 2024. I invite you on the journey as I plough through the internal and external obstacles I face. As the great Bette David loosely said in the movie “All About Eve.” “Buckle your seatbelts. It’s (likely) going to be a bumpy (ride.)”

Feelings Check

Occasionally, I like to trot out and test-drive the emotional impact of my writing on real people. I’ve had a range of reactions. Sometimes the reader is amused, aghast, or apoplectic (Well, not really the third one but the alliteration was too tempting to pass up).

Does the writing elicit the response I was going for? Laughter. Tears. Outrage. Or does it elicit another type of response? Confusion. Disinterest. Boredom. I would die of mortification if my writing caused someone to die of boredom. Honest to God, my worst fear. Or one of them anyway. I would never recover.

That said, I have shared snippets of my intended book right here in this blog. The Ladies Lunch piece? Remember that. A cousin was good enough to write to let me know that the scene rang true to its time and place. She also said my words were “vibrant.” I liked that. Another dear author friend told me that another blog post I wrote elicited “two titters” out of a possible three. That is, it made him laugh. If you understood this guy’s sense of humor, you’d know what high praise that is for my post.

And then there is the person with whom I shared some of the darker issues that will be explored in my memoir. She almost reflexively advised me that “she worries” I will be at risk in the family of deepening old wounds or aggravating new ones. I’m not disagreeing with her. But what I know for sure is that keeping the truth and deeply scarring emotional wounds hidden is much more damaging and dangerous than hurting the perpetrators’ feelings.

That particular response, unsurprisingly, came from someone in the very society I struggled so hard to escape. It spoke volumes about the collective worldview we were raised in. “Be nice.” “Don’t tell.””Never say shit even if you have a mouthful.” I’ll say more about that worldview later. Much more.

Raging Debate

To tell or not to tell? How widely should I spread the word that I am writing a book? It is often cliche and code for “not doing much of anything.” Well, given this blog is about writing a book, that ship has already sailed. But telling the world I am writing a memoir to be accountable is not to be confused with disclosing everything that will go into that memoir.

I once read that the brain doesn’t distinguish between the stories you write on paper and the stories you share out loud. Once you’ve shared, the logic goes, the brain thinks you’ve done it. What I read about this phenomenon doesn’t fully explain how this happens. But it has slivers of sense in it.

Research suggests that discussing the story you are planning to write can actually make you less likely to succeed and finish it. It’s almost like your brain gets tricked into thinking that you’ve already put in the effort and achieved the goal. So, instead of inspiring you to move forward, the act of discussing your work widely before it is completed can actually dampen your motivation.

There is this fairly reasonable fear in artists of fragmenting their vision or misspending their creative energy and momentum. If they allow their drafty drawings or words and stories to be disseminated too far and wide before they are finished, creativity could come to a halt. Writer’s block, for example. That has a host of causes but letting cats out of the bag can be part of it. Releasing sections of our writing into the world prematurely makes it harder to stay focused and committed to the book project’s path. It is like dispersing energy to the wind. Usually unrecoverable. Like time.

There is another good reason for keeping your artistic cards close to your chest. For many authors, even those who have carefully outlined and story-boarded their manuscript, it can happen that their writing doesn’t quite behave and stay on track with the writer’s vision. Plots have been known to deviate onto their own inherent logical path. It would be a pity not to pursue an interesting plot line if it was just sitting there beckoning to you with a broad smile and open arms.

I also hear characters take on a life of their own. You have to follow where your characters lead, not vice versa. Many authors have told me this. Keeping that which is precious and emerging from your creative depths both safe and protected is a generally accepted artistic “best practice.” You wouldn’t think of leaving your infant outside at the mercy of the elements or pushing him or her to tackle something before they are ready.

So to err on the side of caution, I won’t share any chunks of the emerging memoir. Not anymore anyway. From now on, my mantra is “Write don’t tell.” Or is that “Show don’t tell?” I get so mixed up about what I am supposed to do in my writing. I have been listening to way too many online book coaches.

Margot’s Argot

In an earlier post, I talked about my pleasant interaction with a book coach following the Perfect Your Process Writing Summit. Presently, I’m neck-deep in researching my subject matter, dates, places, events, and so on, and learning what I need to do to eventually get myself over the book publishing finish line. That seems like plenty to tackle for now.

But I’m not gonna lie. Having a knowledgeable someone to hold my hand and kick my ass in the doldrums could be helpful. Even better, it feels great to think that there would be someone else I could blame for my procrastination. Or failure.

The first challenge in finding such a person is imagining who that special someone might be. In that regard, bringing a book coach into your life feels a lot like falling in love and setting up house. Without all the sexual tension and dirty dishes. So how does an aspiring author go about acquiring and hiring such a person? Make no mistake. Acquisition is precisely the word. There is a marketplace out there with no end of well-meaning book coaches hawking their wares. And just like any corner of the capitalistic marketplace, the offerings are widely diverse.

Some book coaches have developed their own “processes.” They lure you in with their assertions to the secret world of publishing. Soon you are learning the special language of the publisher and the publishee. Just follow them, step-by-step, they exhort, and you shall be a published author in no time flat. When I came across one particularly comprehensive sales pitch, I checked out their website. I have never been so confused in my life.

That link led to this welcome page and then you sign up for the community here and, while you are at it, submit some of your writing so that others can critique it and that page will lead you back to a page where you can critique the work of others and if you get your draft submitted within this timeframe, you may get some of your money back and … whew. I am exhausted and I haven’t even talked to anyone personally yet. Maybe I’m not supposed to.

I have always had mixed feelings about argot. That special language professionals use to deem you an “insider” or an “outsider.” Think lawyers, doctors, and engineers. Professional training is in large part, language training. Argot – according to Merriam-Webster: “The language used by a particular type or group of people: an often more or less secret vocabulary and idiom peculiar to a particular group.” Well, that definition seems straightforward enough. I read further in the American Heritage Dictionary. “A secret language or conventional slang peculiar to thieves, tramps, and vagabonds devised for purposes of disguise and concealment.” Now that resonates a little too close to home. I am a recovering lawyer after all.

This is not to suggest that book coaches do anything improper or untoward in offering their offerings. But it does have that uncomfortable feeling of “one size fits all.” The promise that anyone can write a book but only if you follow their inherently, foolproof methodology seems a bold statement to me. You can’t argue with success, of course.

If I can be persuaded that countless numbers of illiterate aspiring authors were trained up to become New York Times #1 bestselling authors by following a certain prescription, I would eagerly jump on board. But neither words nor authors adhere that closely to prescriptions in my experience. There is the X factor that makes Stephen King who he is or more accurately the writer he became. He developed his voice over years and years as most successful authors do.

And no one who devours a steady diet of Stephen King’s books necessarily wants to read F. Scott Fitzgerald. Not even The Great Gatsby in Grade 11 English class. After graduation, even less. There is a fairly marked stylistic divide between those two particular genres. As is to be expected in the alchemy of developing a voice.

A book coach may be a good idea up the road but seems premature for me. A conventional first draft book manuscript runs around 50,000 – 70,000 words. I will be more comfortable hiring a book coach when I am at least halfway to that word count, which I presently am not. What happened to the days when intrepid authors sat in their grottoes and submitted query letter after query letter in vain to numerous disinterested publishers and toiled in oblivion for years before their great talent was recognized and, finally, fame, stardom, and wealth inevitably followed? Ya. I don’t really think that ever was a thing except for the favored few. Particularly for those with a trust fund or a wealthy spouse.

For me, for now, I will continue to toil in obscurity in my grotto. Seriously. Given the stage I am presently at in writing this book, getting my word count close to something that eventually impresses me that I am a real author is more urgent. Getting there would at least convince me I am becoming one. PS This is my thirtieth consecutive blog post. That accomplishment is helping me feel like a real writer. In any case, it’s a start.

Ladies Lunch

The memoir progresses. This vignette shines a light on the hypocrisy-ridden social class into which Mom had married. In a small, mid-century Maritimes town, she could be a shocking, therefore, slightly suspicious character. Yet fitting into Fredericton society was my mother’s highest ambition. But she was determined to do it her way. The path that country-born little girl chose to achieve that ambition, which she eventually did, was fraught and not without considerable collateral damage. Mom’s strategy in navigating those social strictures could be clever if alienating – both for her and for her family. In a bigger city, she might have been featured in a woman’s magazine as a rising feminist. But this was the Fifties and the widescale feminist movement was many years away. Mom had to make do.

“Once she had married a lawyer, Mom became a de facto member of the local “lawyers’ wives” club. These women’s only social connection was what their husbands did for a living. In the Fifties, that was considered enough.

The lady wives all arrived shortly before lunchtime toting their contribution to the potluck in Pyrex casserole dishes. The crisp cotton knee-length dresses they wore were usually set off by a dainty string of pearls. Their huge diamond wedding rings were on full display. Lunch would be set up on a buffet side table and then each lady served themselves before sitting down.

I imagined a Jello aspic with ham and marshmallows as part of the menu. After lunch, several of the wives, who lived to play cards, would stay to smoke and wile away the rest of the afternoon playing bridge. Aside from the aspic, gossip was the real main course.

One day, the discussion moved front and center to the outrageous and indiscreet affairs of Edith A. who was one of their own. She was married to powerful local lawyer Francis A. who was generally regarded as a not-nice guy. There was considerable sympathy for her deplorable marriage as he was not only not nice but not terribly attractive. It seems Edith sought comfort outside her marriage to balance Francis’ emotional – and it was said – sexual inadequacy. The ladies cooed and clucked at length about “that Edith” and her indiscretions. “A disgrace,” they all said, nodding in agreement “Her poor children. Putting them through all that. And so publicly.”

Mom and Edith were once close friends. That is until Edith slept with my father some years later and the friendship became difficult to sustain. But at this lunch, Mom was still on friendly terms with her.   Mom felt a rush of protectiveness and outrage over the ladies’ savaging her dear friend, Edith. After listening quietly for a time, Mom piped up and directed a question to one of the other lawyer’s wives. “Ann,” she asked innocently. “How many times a week do you and Pat have sex?”

There was a collective intake of breath at the table. The lawyers’ wives were clearly aghast and embarrassed. Picking up on their shock and disapproval, Mom looked innocently around the table with a perplexed look on her face: “I’m so sorry. Did I say something wrong? Everyone was talking so freely about Edith’s sex life, I thought there wouldn’t be anything wrong with discussing our own.”

Mom neither smoked nor played bridge. However, I guessed that wasn’t the only reason she didn’t stay after lunch to smoke and play cards with the other lawyers’ wives. Or perhaps it was because her ham and marshmallow aspic wasn’t quite up to snuff. Hard to say.

Graphs and Goals

In writing memoir, it is useful to have a tool to help you plot out the course of your life. It doesn’t mean everything that happened in your life will go into your book. Heaven forfend. But it is like taking a sentimental refresher to remind you where you were, what happened, and how it affected you.

Memoir is not an autobiography. Frankly, most of us don’t rate a fully-researched, detailed book that combs through every age and stage of our lives. That is reserved for global movers and shakers like presidents and Nobel prize winners. Most of us wouldn’t want that type of scrutiny anyway. I sure know I wouldn’t. What I do know is that there were key incidents in my life that shaped me. That mantra I had in the 80s about women “having it all” ruled my life for years. Turns out it wasn’t fully true.

Only in retrospect can I see what a bill of goods we women were sold. As we are just living our lives and trying to make ends meet, it is hard to see the significance of the events happening around you at the time. The power of hindsight is 20/20, so we can look back and see more clearly how a particular thing happening led to what happened next. And so on and so on until you die.

So at the suggestion of author Joanne Fedler, I am setting out to create a graph of my life from birth to the present day. Fedler advises us to create a spreadsheet starting with the year of your birth, your age in each year, significant events that occurred in your life, and also what occurred in the world at large. I remember how significant Woodstock was to me in 1969, mostly as a war story reported by those who had actually attended. I was dazzled by their coolness. Looking back now, I see it was a significant cultural event for a whole generation and marked an era of widespread social change. The music of Woodstock was just the tip of the iceberg.

I find it fascinating to reminisce with old friends about how we were and what we lived through. We had all the perfunctory life milestones to go through at the same time as big things happened in the wider world: marriage, babies, career-building, loss of parents, then friends. The predictable trajectory was often marked by outliers such as random tragic deaths close to us, a random financial windfall or reversal, or stupefying betrayals that shook our belief systems to the core. No matter how charmed, few of us get through life completely unscathed.

So I suppress my intense hatred of MS Excel to capture the signposts I need to guide me on my memoir journey. Signposts and goalposts. That is what comes next. By when will this book actually be written, revised, and published? Those goalposts keep changing.

I started this blog with the goal to have my own book in my hands within a year. I might not need that much time. The truth is I have been writing this book all my life. I filled countless journals as I struggled to make sense of the family craziness going on around me. I sent so many emails to friends that I’m convinced that by printing them all out and doing a deep edit, the book’s salient plot points would emerge. I have signed up for a couple of online challenges with the expectation that I’ll have a working first draft in a few weeks, not months. We’ll see about that.

I already know the theme of the book. Surviving the unsurvivable. Gratitude for life in spite of it all. Looking at brokenness with compassion and empathy – for myself and for others. There is so much out there about the value of forgiveness and to me, it’s pretty easy-peasy. You forgive your enemies not for their sake but for your own. I don’t want the damaging people in my life to take up any valuable real estate in my head any longer. I won’t likely have coffee with them, but I have forgiven them.

Effectively it has been a series of choices to get better instead of bitter. The only bitters I enjoy are Angostura in a glass of tonic water and ice with a generous slice of lemon. That is a beverage I fully plan to enjoy at each milestone that this book-writing process occasions. Chin-chin.

Critical Mass

Consider how social movements start and take hold. It has something to do with critical mass. When enough people believe and act on certain beliefs, social change can happen. I take comfort that there are many people who want to live in a reasonable society as much as I do. I think we can all agree that the current state of Western society doesn’t work so well for a large number of people. A classic SNAFU.

Often we believe there is little we can do as individuals to affect the world around us. Ultimately change comes down to starting with “the man in the mirror” as the late singer Michael Jackson put it. Once we get that, we can begin to look inward to find out what doesn’t work in our own lives. Then we can decide if we want to undertake the difficult process of change. Many don’t.

I have experienced how positive change in ourselves can positively affect others. I was profoundly tone-deaf to this when I was younger. My belief system was badly off-kilter in the wake of a trauma-filled upbringing. I had a lot of learning and unlearning to do. Today, I believe there is little I can do about other people’s mental health, I choose to not make their suffering worse. As a choice, I am as kind and respectful as possible to everyone I encounter. I try to be one of those “make somebody else’s day” people. And while I am not able to cure emotionally unbalanced people, I no longer have to be one.

For a long time, I chose crazy. Drinking to excess. Believing I was going to die young. (It excused a host of deplorable behaviors.) Putting up with other people’s deplorable behaviors. Not setting healthy boundaries with others and treating myself with disrespect. Staying too long where I wasn’t wanted. Self-pity is an unprofitable indulgence. In a society suffering so much sickness and fragmentation, what keeps me optimistic are the pockets of sanity and sanctuary I encounter.

As I comb through the internet in my writing journey, I find countless beacons of hope. Great blog posts on healing and building community. There is a plethora of spiritual guidance and insight available out there that isn’t the slightest bit preachy. Just thought-provoking. And loving. I see this in my 3X Weekly Online Writer’s Group. The members of our group all have similar values and concerns about the world. Each time we meet, we reinforce those values and each other. That’s the very definition of community.

The pursuit of a saner life seems to be fomenting a counterbalance to the current widespread craziness. It is big work. The Dalai Lama was recently asked how the current epidemic of widespread anxiety and depression could be healed. He advised that people be less self-centered and to help each other. Seriously. That sounds like solid, old-school advice from a wise old monk who’s seen some living. (EDNOTE: I’m aware of the current controversy surrounding the Dalai Lama. I choose to ignore it as it is not germane to my point or his record.)

One day, there may be enough people looking away from their devices and poll numbers long enough to focus on the collective goal of creating a healthier and more inclusive society. We can hope for a critical mass of people moving deliberately in that direction that will tip us over into actually making a better world so. That is wildly optimistic, I realize. But something’s got to give. What is, ain’t working.

Make Our Garden Grow

I love Easter’s message about the certainty of renewal and resurrection for all of us. I love it not so much as a religious message but as a spiritual rule of life. Resurrection and renewal underscore the phases of our lives. There are repetitive patterns of death and renewal throughout. To move forward in life usually means we must leave something behind. Nothing lasts forever. Neither good times nor bad. Leaving things behind is what we need to do in order to grow. Graduation means the end of formal schooling and close connections to the pals you shared it with. Marriage, done right, is saying goodbye not only to singledom but self-centeredness. Birthing children means the end of a good night’s sleep for months on end. Okay, that shortchanges the enormity of how children affect us inside and out. When those babies eventually leave home to start their own lives a decade or so later, it can be a wrenching loss and upheaval for parents. But it can also be liberation. Time is finally available to allow us to return focus to our own interests. This pattern of death and rebirth occurs regularly in everyone’s lives. Time grants us the perspective to look back and accept the certainty of these patterns as the natural patterns of life. If we’re lucky, we get to say a gentle goodbye to every era of our life and welcome what is coming with open arms. Time presses on with or without us. Of course, it requires emotional balance and maturity to make those transitions seamlessly and successfully. Most of us traverse these fissures well enough, often accompanied by some measure of anxiety and trepidation. Most humans react predictably in the face of meeting the unknown. Farmers and gardeners are lucky to be more closely connected than most to these recurring patterns of birth, death, and rebirth. It puzzled me in my youth why gardeners – often older people – took such satisfaction from creating a garden. Looked like a lot of work for questionable results. Nowadays it makes more sense to me. A garden is a contained world we can create and tend through our own choices and efforts. We get to enjoy and share the joy from the beauty of flowers, the nourishment of fruits and vegetables, and a tract of grass that can be a carpet and a playground. A garden is also a guard against erosion – personal and spiritual. Cultivating a metaphorical garden inside ourselves that manifests in our outer life nourishes us and our loved ones. It is considered by some observers to be one of the fundamental ingredients for happiness. As the years press on, our sphere of control in the world outside gets smaller. But our inner world is eternally ours to manage. Reading books nurtures our inner garden. It takes us to places and worlds we may never visit in person and introduces us to all manner of exotica. Readers know this intimately. So do writers.

Present and Accounting For

I write for myself. For those who think I am one of those who want to write to boost a bruised ego or seek fame, you are mistaken. When a mind and psyche are overwhelmed by a tsunami of life’s ick, it is necessary to clean up the mess and carve out your space. It certainly is if you want to claim and inhabit your uniqueness and your humanity.

I was reading today about the importance of reclaiming your personal power. That is something I sorely need to do. I sidestepped and gave away my personal power for many years. My self-esteem and self-confidence had been washed away by negative external forces. Clawing it back is a daunting task. Women are particularly vulnerable to the complicit act of erasing themselves. It is so very easy to be erased. Don’t answer a question honestly. Say black is white when what you really think and know is that it is black. We choose the cheapest dish on the menu instead of ordering what we really want which is $3 more. We go along to get along.

There are those children who are consistently validated on their report cards for “working and playing well with others.” That sets them up to be first-rate bureaucrats and functionaries who seamlessly blend into the system. We promote those people, literally and figuratively, because they are not threatening. Because whoever is in charge wants them to be compliant. Easily directed, managed, and contained. No questions asked.

So the choice comes down to choosing between what you need to grow or the potential risk of alienating others. Much too often, we choose to fit in and curry the favor of people we don’t much like or wish to be like. Choosing another direction can take tremendous courage and sacrifice. There is no end of books and movies that have addressed this theme. Billy Elliott comes to mind. A working-class boy from northern England discovers his passion for ballet and has to fight against his father’s objections to develop his talent. Billy wins in the end and becomes a professional ballet dancer but not without considerable pain and struggle.

It is often said talent is as plentiful as air. But making the commitment and taking the steps to develop it is what defeats most artists. They settle and simmer in mediocrity and denial of the importance of pursuing their gifts. That may be my story. Fear of all stripes ruled my life and choices for many years. Until it came to the point where either I write or I die. Sounds dramatic but I assure you, it is fact.

The world cares about little except our utility in it. And we all have to make a living. But we also have to make a life. Making a life means identifying and pursuing what really matters to you. Ultimately it means honoring what makes you, you.

It also means identifying your pack. Those kindred spirits who “get you” and share your values and support your efforts and goals. We all need to grow and get better and move forward in life. Otherwise, we stagnate and die. If not actually, then metaphorically. That is why this daily blog writing exercise and the pages I write offline to create a memoir matter so much to me. To save myself. To save my soul. Everyone has their own unique path to salvation. Writing is mine.

The Book Thief

Last night, I watched the movie The Book Thief for the first time. As an unrepentant film junkie, I don’t know how this gem escaped my notice. Talk about resonance.

Liesl, a young German girl, finds herself at the beginning of World War II about to be separated from her birth mother and grieving the very recent death of her little brother.

It turns out she has been given up for adoption to another German family who needs the labor. At school, Liesl’s illiteracy is revealed and she suffers the humiliation of her classmates. All around her, Nazis are pushing forward with their evil agenda.

The film reproduces the horror of Kristallnacht: “(German: “Crystal Night”), also called the Night of Broken Glass or November Pogroms, [refers to] the night of November 9–10, 1938, when German Nazis attacked Jewish persons and property.

The name Kristallnacht refers ironically to the litter of broken glass left in the streets after these pogroms.”  https://www.britannica.com/event/Kristallnacht

It was chilling to see the deliberate destruction of people’s homes and businesses and the abuse heaped upon Jewish Germans. As we all know now, it got much, much worse.

Equally chilling was the scene where books were heaped in a huge pile in the middle of the town square and ignited in a sickening symbol of cultural and intellectual annihilation. Liesl begins a subversive journey to not only learn to read but to write.

To do so, she must stoop to theft and subterfuge on several levels that include hiding the fact that a beloved Jewish neighbor is now a refugee living in the basement. The evil and inflicted agony and base stupidity of Nazism oozes from every scene.

Not without significant losses and heartache, Liesl prevails and survives the war when many of her loved ones don’t. She grows up, marries, has children and grandchildren, and, as her legacy, leaves a lifetime of books she has written.

It is a beautiful story of survival, the triumph of love over evil, and a demonstration of the power of books and stories to help preserve our humanity. It stupefies me that promoting humanity as a fundamental value is still so threatening to some who have more materialistic and baser beliefs about what really matters in life. Without others, we ain’t much.

Yesterday was April Fool’s Day. It was a day of significance for me this year least of which was that it was a day for pulling practical jokes.

The NaNoWriMo Challenge began yesterday. The entire month of April is to be devoted to producing a 50,000-word draft manuscript by the last day of the month. For a person who thrives on deadlines, that’s a pretty strong incentive.

It was also the beginning of a 30-day blog writing challenge that comes around annually every quarter: https://30dayblogchallenge.com/start-challenge/

I have been writing this blog for 21 days. What’s another 30? Yet another carrot at the end of a stick. I celebrate the expanding community of writers and writing that I am finding online.

As a learning junkie, every like or comment on my blog or a new bit of information that comes my way is like salt on my supper table.

The problem is, I like to repeat, there is too much information out there. So, just like salt, I must be mindful of how much to ingest.

I am determined to tease out the insights gleaned from all this information. I’m finding guideposts for my own life, my writing process, and perhaps, occasionally, an insight or two that may resonate in readers’ lives as well. High ambition.

Pick the Right Wolf

It is said that what we train our energy on grows. There is a whole logic about focusing on the positive to attract things you want into your life. Whinging and whining about what we don’t have is only going to make things worse.

If you’re broke, imagine what you would be able to do if you had enough money. If you are in a soul-crushing job, imagine what an ideal work environment would look like for you. Anything that we ultimately have in our lives comes true because we first imagined it. It didn’t necessarily have a concrete shape or form or location, but we could see ourselves living that life in our minds. It took me decades to learn that lesson.

It also takes courage and action to get there. You cannot sit in a meditation cell and acquire the house of your dreams. But time in a meditation cell may focus and clarify your mind sufficiently to help you decide if the house of your dreams is what you really want. Maybe a shack on the beach is the house of your dreams. Everyone has different aspirations.

We must believe in what we want to achieve and then aim for it. In young adulthood, I straddled the fence. I saw myself as competent but couldn’t maximize the opportunities that came to me. I was the Queen of second-guessing and self-doubt. I felt I had value to share but didn’t see myself as valuable. I felt external honors that came to me were undeserved gifts and not earned. That ambiguity of purpose and worth creates an internal world of cognitive dissonance. Many women are familiar with “imposter syndrome.” And so, we aspiring (and usually female) professionals were told to “fake it until we make it.” It can take a long time to get it together.

My friend Judee Doyle is an amazing and intuitive photographer. She shoots and posts and shoots and posts. Mostly on her Facebook page for now. She captures amazing landscapes with surreal lighting. All manner of birds and seals and other wild things from the shores and environs of her Vancouver Island home that she treats and presents as her buddies. It is delightful to watch her grow. Slowly but surely, I see my friend Judee’s online repertoire, her talent and confidence evolving. https://www.facebook.com/justjudee/ From our long acquaintance, I know Judee’s current life of light and creativity wasn’t always so. So I celebrate her as much as her achievements. Judee chooses to thrive and pursue her art.

You may be familiar with the story of the two wolves. The story is most often attributed to a legend from the Cherokee tribe, but there are various versions. In this short metaphorical story, a grandfather describes to his grandson how to manage his internal battles explaining that two wolves are fighting within him – with one being good (kindness, compassion, love, patience, et. al.) and the other being evil (greedy, petty, petulant, pathologically selfish). When his grandson asks which wolf wins, the grandfather simply replies: “The one you feed.”

The accumulated insults of living life, missing out, rejection, and/or trauma can interfere with our energy flow and creative output. One day, you accept that the dark history is as much a legitimate part of you, as your higher impulses. By accepting that, we can tame and contain our darker impulses. It is when we acknowledge both the dark and the light within us and around us that we can consciously choose the light and let it lead us forward. In living your life, pick your wolf friends carefully. Inside and out.