Another Year!

The year of the woman? We can only hope and/or stand up for our civil rights. How can we have gone so far backward like this? It's been a long slide and now we are stuck in the mud at the bottom. I have given up on the two party system and am trying very hard to give up the news. I want to focus on the positive...there is now an underground helping women. We are not without resources. But the mere idea that MEN have taken us to this level makes my blood boil. Anyway, enough of that.

Finding The Tree is nearing conclusion. But the ending is giving me fits! The one I'd planned is too derivative and nothing else has presented itself. Normally my characters figure it out--perhaps I am too involved and too impatient? I am leaving it at least for today and using my time to edit. Maybe as I work my way through something will appear. I want this to be published in January so something better show itself soon! If you have forgotten or have not read previous blogs, this book is about a world of the future and a young woman who finds herself falling into a dreamworld and coming into contact with the distant past. But is it actually a dream?

I am also in the planning stages of another book, but this one will be non-fiction. A book about women and their stories. A friend of mine and I are co-creating it. I have already approached a woman living in her car about the project. She will be my first interviewee. But first I have to figure out how to record on my phone! I've done 'notes' so I'm sure it won't be too difficult.

Does this blog seem like a newsletter? Because that's what it feels like. News and thoughts. And speaking of news, I will be doing several very good promos in January. So keep tuned! Check out my website from time to time--I usually put the deals on the home page.

I would LOVE to have comments from any of you so inclined. I thought perhaps I didn't have a place to comment, but I think I do...Thanks for reading!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Solstice message for women

I get up in the morning and wash my face with the gel I got from the skincare lady. I stare at my face and see new wrinkles! My left eye lid is drooping--WHAT? My trip to eye doctor results in some kind of drops that may or may not work--"You've been defying gravity for a long time," the doc says. "If you need more come back."

I scan the internet for new products to apply to my skin. A list of the five best vitamin C serum comes up. I order the first one on the list thinking it must be the best...I stare into my bathroom cabinet where bottles and small jars fill the shelves. Retin-A, vitamin C serums, moisturizers with hyaluronic acid abound. But when I look it up I find that hyaluronic acid is actually not good for dry skin! My skin is ULTRA dry! And when I peruse my creams and serums further I realize that hyaluronic acid is in nearly everything ! I wondered why the moisture surge cream I got from Clinique seemed to dry out my skin, or the Neutrogena wrinkle cream I just bought aged me instead of helping. When my new C serum arrives I send it back. I am now down to a moisturizer that I got from my esthetician and aloe vera cream. The moisturizer is made by company called Cleora and it actually works better under my eyes than the expensive eye cream I ordered and have since thrown away. I am also using a tinted moisturizer with spf that has been tested on animals--I am horrified by my hypocrisy.

Giving you info on which products to buy was not my purpose here. I am a hypocrite when discussing these things but there is a large part of my soul that wants to be free of what society tells us--the idea that we have to look younger than we are. We live in a misogynistic society, our worth gone as soon as our hair turns gray. We are invisible, any idea of being wise women lost in a culture that reveres youth. My own struggle with this is why I'm writing. I do not want to worry about my wrinkles or examine my face for new ones. Obviously I want to look as good as I can, but I don't want to find myself in some doctor's office having some painful procedure done. I want to feel good inside myself so that a new wrinkle doesn't bother me. Where did this self-doubt come from? Are we all doomed to buying into the billion dollar anti-aging industry? Will I succeed in embracing this new idea of self-worth? I really hope so.

As an author I have hesitated to reveal my age--afraid that because I am 'old' my book sales will plummet. And yet what I write is deeper and has more meaning because I have learned things, gone through therapy, been to spiritual retreats, studied with teachers (gurus) and lived through times that younger women know nothing about. I was a hippy, (still am) a protester, a dope smoker, an artist. I trusted the universe and running out of gas on some back road didn't faze me. I had no cell phone when I drove at sixteen from Michigan to Pennsylvania. The world has changed, I get it. But what has happened to the wise woman? The crone? The goddess with three faces--youth, mother and wise woman? We need to take back our power (and reverse our self-doubt) ...stop buying into this needing to stay young crap. I want to age gracefully--do yoga to be supple and calm. To not be stressed in a society that is all about stress. To step away from the mainstream and make my own decisions about my life. To step out in all my beauty as an older women.

Today is the Solstice--give libations to the return of the light! Ask the universe for help in becoming the woman you want to be and send your wishes out into the universe on this auspicious day! Have a wonderful light-filled Yule and embrace the coming NEW year!

And thanks for reading.

Why I Write

This image says it all...I used a similar one on the cover of Book 1 of my Dark Goddess series, ECHOES. Stepping through into another world, either past, future or parallel, doesn't matter. Knowing there are other worlds out there, whether imagined or real--they exist. Magic exists. When I was around six I was sure I saw a fairy in the corner of my bedroom--she was blue and nearly see-through. I had an imaginary sister named Patricia and a very real woodchuck that slept under the covers in my bed. I spent time in the fields around our farm, my imagination growing with each passing day. We had no electronic devices in those days, not even T.V. --I'm sure it's hard to imagine what this was like in our device-filled world of today. Imagination took the place of cartoons, anime and video games. Daydreaming and staring at the clouds are important.

Despite the emotional turbulence I experienced, I am so grateful for my childhood when I was allowed to roam on my own. No worries about kidnapping or crazy people with guns. The world was different back then....maybe because it was less populated. I don't know for sure. Or even possibly because our news and social media is so immediate now and we are frightened by what we read. Is it really more dangerous or do we just think it is? All I know is that I would never pick up a hitchhiker now, but back then I was always picking people up, even with my little kiddos in the car. I could space out, run out of gas and know that I would be fine. I drove from Michigan to Maryland on my own at sixteen--without a cell phone. But I'm certainly dependent on mine now.

My writing comes from those early days. And I've lately noticed that if I look carefully at what I'm writing I find out more about myself. It's the unconscious flowing to the surface and arriving on the page. I could never write to market. By nature I'm not a planner (plotter)--even the idea of an outline gives me the heebie jeebies. When I sit down to write I have only a vague idea of what it will be. I may have a name, a sex, a general story line, but other than that my writing is like reading a book. I don't know what's coming next and my characters have a mind of their own. If they don't take control by the end of the first chapter there is something wrong. I sometimes dream the story and wake up with a conversation going on in my head. When I'm deep into a book I do plan at night, thinking about what happens next, and how to get from point A to point B, but many times those plans do not come to fruition. For instance in my current book I had the ending all figured out--until I got there and my character gave me the proverbial middle finger and did her own thing.

So to summarize: I write to learn about myself and to explore other worlds where magic really exists. I also write to explore issues I'm concerned about. To me the natural world is the only REAL world. I see the redwoods and I think, this is what's real, the politics of the day is not real, nor is the chaos of the social media world. Many will disagree, but I think that electronic devices are hindering us more than helping--yes, it's great to stay in touch and to have the library of google at our fingertips, but to be blind to the world around us is not a good thing.

Thanks for reading!!!