Dear Writers, My Twelve Step Program

 

Dear Writers,

Look at that happy face don't you wish it was ours?

First, many of us can relate to this author:

1. Write the book.

2. Figure out how to publish it.

3. Spend a month planning your launch.

4. Sell 3 copies… then nothing.

5. Beg all your friends to buy it.

6. Click “refresh” on your sales dashboard 1,627,562 times.

7. Still no sales.

8. Freak out.

9. Spend the weekend crying and eating Ben & Jerry’s.

10. Read the internet and sort through all the conflicting publishing advice.

11. Follow the “Top 837 Ways to Market your Book.”

12. Hustle your brains out.

13. Sell five more copies.

14. Despair.

My Twelve Step Program:

1. Wrote a book

2. Found a darling publisher willing to take a chance on me.

3. Editor/publisher and I edited the manuscript over months of emails.

4. Waited two years until publication.

5. Five copies mailed to me.

6. My hands caressed it's beautiful sensuous cover.

7. Created a website for it. 

8. Announced it to my audience.

9. Sold a few copies

10. Bought more myself than I sold with the intention of selling them myself. However Rule: I could not sell anything unless I was physically present.

11. Missed the deadline for Art in the Vineyard, where they allow authors to sell their wares. The kind enroller gave me a spot at the County Fair. I hauled books to the fair and sat for two days, having fun with the other authors, but sold only one book per day. Who wants to buy a book at the Fair? Well, me. I bought one of the other author's books.

One lady called out to me across the concourse, “How long have you been writing?”

“Since the day before God was born,” I called back. She laughed, and said, “I was there,” and left without coming near me—afraid I might twist her arm to buy a book maybe.

12. My publisher is unhappy with me that I didn’t make us both rich.

 

 

The frog calls the rain to settle the dusk for our journey

 

 

Off the Grid for One Year

 

 

 

I drew the Frog Card three times from Medicine Cards The Discovery of Power Through the Ways of Animals by Jamie Sams & David Carson and loved the saying about the frogs calling the rain and settling the dust.  When we got to the island the Coqui frogs, who chirp their own name, sang me to sleep at night. When we got back to Oregon, the bull frogs sounded their big hoarse voices in the night from a pond near by.

Perhaps the Frog's Song is too sweet a title.

 

Maybe people think its a child's book. 

 

Perhaps they just don't want to fork out the money for it, or it simply doesn't ring their chimes.

 

Go back to the drawing board Davis. 

 

It needs a subtitle, got any ideas?

 

Maybe: 

 

Go to Hawaii for fun, but before you move there, read this.

or

Davis, you make a great tourist but a lousy Polynesian.

 or

Off the grid you say? Ha, ha, ha. Wait until the lights go out.

or

Pele Calls them, holds them, and Doesn't let Them go Without a Fight

 

And a great subtitle possibility: 

Soon to be a best seller

Ta da! Today is a new day, and I am exhausted after working on an annotated table of contents, for another book.

See writers? Don't give up.

I Wish for You Funny or Enlightened. You Choose

The Pink Flamingo riding a motorcycle is a Christmas ornament from my daughter. It signifies that The Pink Flamingos (us) are on Sabbatical. (Vibrance Real Estate LLC.) We don't ride motorcycles, but you get the spirit of them—freedom.

Incidentally, before Christmas, I parked beside a bevy of Harley Davidson motorcycle riders, about 20 or so, at a stop light. Every one of the riders was dressed in some replica of a Santa outfit, red boots with white furry tops, lights in a Santa hat, colored lights on their bike, Santa pants—gotta show their Harvey jackets, though. They were turning to go onto the freeway, and I was going straight, so I got the full benefit of them. A girl-rider and I gave each other a thumbs up, the light turned to green, the Santa lookalikes rived their ear-splitting motors, entered an on-ramp, and disappeared down the freeway, red hats waving in their wake.

Here we are on the last day of the year, and it's Tuesday, I think—I lose track.

Remember the Christmas pageants of Jesus being born, Mary and Joseph, the Shepherds, and the wise men, all that? I was distracted a few moments ago by a fabulously funny, quirky blog by Allie Brosh titled Hyperbole and a Half. I laughed at her version of the nativity. As a kid she looked forward to the pageant—but it was lame, so she went home and enrolled grandparents, and parents into her own rousing version—yelling at the innkeeper, wise men with no gifts, baby Jesus came flying in from stage right—since she didn’t know anything about childbirth—all that. I was glad I was sitting down.

Laugh yourself into the day—let's try that tomorrow on the first day of the year. I'll try. You try, and let's see what we come up with. Let's have fun and be nice again.  

During Christmas shopping on the day before Christmas Eve, I visited Barnes and Noble Bookstore—a coffee shop in a bookstore is one of my favorite things. After upgrading my buying card, where they gave me a great canvas book bag for free, 

I sat down for a break with a cup of coffee and began reading one of their books.

To give you an idea of where I'm coming from, one day, long ago, when my husband was studying at Lindfield College in McMinnville, Oregon, we attended the student production of Inherit the Wind. I still remember the superb actor who played Clarence Darrel, the lawyer defending the science teacher, John Scopes, who was prosecuted in 1925 for teaching evolution in a Tennessee public school. Darrel lost the trial but won the war—they now teach evolution in schools.

When Darrel slapped two books together, the Christian Bible and Darwin's Origin of the Species, stuck them under his arm and walked off stage, I felt I was hit by an anvil.

On some level, I knew science and religion didn't have to argue, but it took years to integrate them.

With that mindset, I picked up the book those two days before Christmas, and began reading The Science of Mind by Ernest Holmes. It was the combined 1926 version and the expanded 1938 version, as heavy as the dictionary I used to carry to English class because I was a poor speller. We students would get an F on our essays if two words were misspelled. However, we were allowed to use a dictionary, and thus, I passed the class.

When I read Holmes' words, we shouldn't accept the ideas presented by some who say that the world is full of hatred and all is rotten. "Your work," he said, "is to not to go there." I silently screamed, "I need this book!"

It was an expensive book by today's standards now that we are used to Kindle versions, and that book was two inches thick, at 776 pages—but I bought it and gave it to myself for Christmas.

Let's do a little sleuthing with the help of old Ernest Holmes. Interesting last name, Holmes.

The writer of Genesis in the Christian Bible says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the word was God."

And he made everything and it was good.

According to Holmes, great thinkers of all times have taught that we live in a threefold universe: Body, Mind, and Spirit.  I always thought that was the holistic approach to health, treating all aspects of the person, mind, body, and spirit.

Yet, all around, we see threesome aspects. In science, it is Intelligence, Substance, and Result. (Or Idea, development, success)

The Law of Attraction says, Ask, Believe, Receive.

The Trinity of the Bible says the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The Bible began by saying that God was the word. If we said that the Holy Spirit is the word of God, and God the Father is the one who gets things done, then the Son would be the result.

These are models, folks. We read for fun or enlightenment—here’s a little of both.

Earlier I mentioned that the arbor in our front yard blew over. See that long package on the table? That's our new arbor. Daughter's present to me.

 

By Jo at 12:17 AM