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Saturday, July 31, 2010

Last Chance

Last call is almost up for Avery DeBow's Mad Lib "Junket City", as well as today is the last day you can get Amber Scott's "Play Fling" (currently in the top 25 best sellers on Smashwords) free with the promotional coupon.

Steve Malley has published his novel "Crossroad Blues" there as well, and I have "Unmasked" for free during the July promotion as well. Oh, and after you've checked out Steve's book page, you should really take a look at his tattoo art. Now I wish I were in New Zealand so I could get one. :)

Forgive me for not getting this up earlier. I've been busy, busy, busy with working the day job, gearing up to do my yearly Halloween art sale, creating cover art with Cobblestone Press, and just trying to decide what I want to be when I grow up.

Friday, July 23, 2010

Words of Wisdom from My Bus Driver

"A closed mouth doesn't get fed."

So, your assignment this weekend, should you choose to accept it, is to get out there and ask for what you want. :)

Monday, July 19, 2010

Magical Mondays: Songs from the Subconscious

(Or, alternately titled, "Whereat Kate Gets Her @ss Kicked Again, But in a Good Way")

Magical Mondays started as a way to share some of the unusual and sometimes sublime moments of intuition and unexplained phenomena people experience on occasion. Sometimes the events are striking, sometimes subtle. The past two weeks have been the latter for me.

A week ago, I took a few minutes a day to ask my subconscious to tell me what I really wanted. After a few days, it suddenly showed me a clear picture.

However, over the past two weeks, I've also been experiencing a great deal of stress at work and have had several "aha" moments where I've realized that I've let other people walk all over me my entire life. Then, during the past couple of days of peak stress and aggravation, I started asking myself: Have I done something to contribute to these people thinking they can be such jerks to me? Am I enabling their condescension? Is there some part of me that really believes I deserve it?

But then I kept thinking that, no, I truly didn't believe that they were better than I am, so what was the deal? Were they simply buttheads and I was innocent of any fault? But if that was the case, why did they bother me so much?

So, once more I put out a call to my subconscious/higher self/universe/guardian angel/collective unconscious/god/higher power/whomever (as Wayne Dyer says, you can call it "Louise" if you like), and asked, what am I missing here?

After asking again before I went to bed last night, I had the following dream...

I had gone into a cellar to get some rope then saw that it wasn't a cellar, but it was my grave. Even though I was still alive, I knew the future me was dead and buried in there just behind a door to my right. There was mold all around and it was pretty creepy. I was both fascinated and scared by my own grave, but realized I shouldn't be in there just yet. As I walked out of it and shut the door firmly behind me, a song started playing very loudly, and these were the words:

It doesn't matter how young or old you are.
It doesn't matter what you do.
It doesn't matter what they think,
If you matter to you.
Do you?
Do you matter?
Do you matter to you?

I woke up suddenly from the dream with the song still playing in my head, and knew it really doesn't matter what those supercilious sh*ts think. I DO matter to me, and they're about to find out just how much. I'm not ready to lie down and die just yet. :)

How about you? Anything feel particularly empowering lately?

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

And just for fun...

Two posts in one day - a new record. ;)

Got this little gadget from Jennifer Armintrout's blog. I thought the result was interesting since the excerpt I used was from my latest WIP - one that is darker than any other I've done so far, even though the paragraphs I used weren't really dark.



I write like
Stephen King

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!



Try it - I'd like to see your results. :)

Dream a little dream with me...

Amber Scott had a fun challenge on her blog the other day. Basically, it's a 10 minute meditation/positive visualization exercise where you hold a strong image of your heart's desire in your mind for ten minutes a day for one week. She is going to check back on everyone in a week to see how they feel.

I threw my hat in the ring... sat down to do my ten minutes... and realized I had no idea what my heart's desire really was! That turned into two days of just spending those ten daily minutes asking my subconscious to dig up what I really wanted, what would make me glow with happiness. But make it something selfish, please. Sure, we'd all like world peace, an end to hunger, etc. But what about ME? What would tingle my pringle in the meantime while we're all hoping for whirled peas?

Then, quite strongly, I had an image of myself in the kitchen, painting. It was a flashback to a day when I realized I was really happy, and that I had never been so happy in my life. That was almost three years ago now, and I haven't felt that good since. I miss it. And the key to that happiness was that I was solely working for myself, on my own schedule, doing the things I love to do. I was writing, painting, and sculpting daily. My daughter and I were spending enjoyable moments together - there was no stress of going to a day job I hated. I had enough money to get by then. That was it. That's what I want.

That's not too much to ask, is it? Now, you try it. Feel free to share it here if you want, or just hold it close to your heart and smile mysteriously. :)

Meanwhile, today is my daughter's 18th birthday, Lana Gramlich has a new book of her photographs out, and her husband, Charles, just published a collection of Westerns. Congratulations to all. :)