Category: inspirational

A Writer’s Wings Cover Reveal!

August 1st, 2018

I’ve been keeping mostly to myself this summer because it’s been an especially busy one this year. I’ve been packing to get ready for our move, which should happen in a few weeks. We are in closing stages now on our home in Florida. I’ve also been doing a lot of self-reflection work to help clear myself to be more beneficial as a Reiki healer and to be a more balanced person over all. The other major project I’ve been working on is a book that is near and dear to my heart, mostly because it is a large part of my heart–it is one of my very special journals that I’ve been writing in for quite some time.

A Writer’s Wings took years to write, but it was done little bits at a time as any journal is written. I spent a large part of April, May, and June of this year transferring my journal entries into a digital file. Then I spent July working on formatting, layout, and illustrations to place in the book to make it a little more eye-catching. I’ve been working on the cover off and on since April, but it’s only been the last week I’ve buckled down to get it finished.

I have a 11×17 image of the butterfly you see across the front of the cover hanging over my desk in my office. I created the graphic years ago, because I decided I needed something very personal and meaningful to inspire me as I wrote. In fact, as I was brainstorming cover ideas for Writer’s Wings I kept looking up at that image over my desk. After a while a light came on in my befuddled brain and I realized the image was exactly what I needed for the cover, since Writer’s Wings is all about inspiration.

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Journaling Series Part 1: Why is Journaling Important?

April 20th, 2018

The content in this journaling series is from what I shared with my recent in-person journaling class. My original idea was to try and create an online class, but ultimately decided to create a blog series in which to freely share this information.

I feel very passionate about journaling and the great tool it can be in helping to discover more about who we really are, but I find information on journaling is scattered over many places. Also, there’s a lot on bullet journaling (the most popular type of journaling right now), but there isn’t a focus on all the broad possibilities of journaling or why it is so important. I hope through this blog series I can address these things as well as express why I find journaling to be such a vital part of my life.

So let’s start with why I believe journaling is so important. The best way I can do that is to tell you how journaling has affected my life.

I didn’t always journal, and when I did start it was very infrequent. Maybe once a month or two and it remained this way for a while. Usually my journaling was just a dump of negative emotions and when I went back to read what I wrote, I’d become incredibly depressed. Because of this, I decided I didn’t want to write because I didn’t want to depress myself further. I thought “What’s the point?” “Life sucks and it’s nothing but a gaping raw wound. Why make it worse by spilling my crap on purpose?”

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Discovering a New Perspective: The Four Agreements

March 18th, 2018

My life has recently gone through some major changes (very good changes), and will be going through more in the near future. A large contributing factor of that is a change of perspective that I have gradually come to. I believe this has happened through many avenues that has taken a long time to evolve, which has been a slow, painful, yet enlightening path. Even though it has been slow coming up out of the mire of negativity that I had been entombed in, there have been a few key pieces that when snapped into place have catapulted me into a faster evolution. One of these key pieces was reading this fascinating book The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz.

I purchased this book on a high recommendation of a friend. I took it with me last spring when my husband and I got away for a week in a cozy cabin in the mountains. One of the things I really enjoyed doing on that trip was cuddling up near the fireplace and reading. While I did bring another book to read as well, this was my book of choice. It fascinated me and stretched my mind in such a way that I simply could not put it down.

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The Journey of a Creative Life

August 9th, 2017

It amazes me. Life. The journey we take. It takes surprising turns and we end up in locations we never thought possible. We have these big ideas of where we want to go. Sometimes we get there and we don’t even know it, because we get so wrapped up in all the craziness that is our life. Sometimes we don’t get there, but we arrived in a place that’s just as good or even better. And we think, “Wow, how did I get here?”

Living a creative life isn’t easy in this world of constant distractions and doubt. We wonder if what we are doing is right. We wonder if we should do this or do that. We fear what others might think if they find out exactly what we want or exactly how we think. We fear judgement and scorn. We fear failure. We fear success. We fear doing the wrong thing.

But even with all this tumbling in the back of our minds, we still feel the need to live our life the way we want to. That pull. That desire to just be us. It’s not just enough to live. We want to live a creative life. We want to be expressive. We want to experiment. We want to try new things. We want to do more than what we are doing. We want to be more than what we are, or maybe just a better version.

We also worry about how much we are getting done. Is our life where it should be? Shouldn’t we be doing more? Shouldn’t we be farther along than we are?

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A Study of Character: At the Park

August 5th, 2013

As a mother of a five year old boy, I find that I frequent the local parks quite a bit. In fact, it is probably my most visited location besides the grocery store since my son’s birth. In spending a lot of time at playgrounds, I’ve discovered a true writing treasure- the ability to study a wide variety of characters and the basic human condition in just an hour or two of doing my most important job of all- “being mom”.

Want to get a good glance at an array of human behaviors from antagonistic, insecure, mischievous to friendly, confident, and intuitive? Just take a trip to the park, and let this small playground world give a glimpse into the bigger world. It’s a cast of characters waiting to be plucked for a story or novel, or just to be studied to understand reactions to certain situations. It’s humanity raw with all the complexities of adulthood stripped away. It’s the simplicity of behaviors at the most infant stage. Friendships are forged in a matter of one slide down the big red twisty slide. Or witness that awkward moment when no one can agree on what to play, or personalities clash like a display of colorful fireworks. It’s all there to see for anyone willing to watch. It’s where priceless moments are created and children learn to belong, or just find out how annoying some kids can really be. But the kids aren’t the only illuminating presences at the park. Some of the most interesting playground lurkers are the parents themselves.

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