Two Collections for the Indie Author Uploaded

You will be happy to know that I am using my non-NaNo time for better purposes than to watch mindless TV and eat bonbons. Which, maybe in a couple months or so, I can actually partake of. We'll see...

I uploaded two collections just now to Amazon. One three-book and one four-book, containing my nonfiction titles with the Indie author in mind.

Granted, I wasn't keeping a strict accounting of my time involved, but here's a pretty good breakdown for my future use, which may be of import to some of you as well:

1. ONE HOUR - Looked everywhere for my missing Word document for one of the ebooks that served as part of both collections. This would fall under that Miscellaneous category for things we do not expect to happen, much less have to deal with. Grrr.

2. ONE HOUR - Retyping document into Word from my Kindle ebook. Notice it took just as long to recreate the doc as it did trying to find the doc. Sigh.

3. TWO HOURS - Combining the four ebooks into one and needing one master Table of Contents, but two of the four had their own internal TOC. So I had to newly designate an endless array of titles to NOT be included in the overview TOC. And for some reason after copying the individual docs into one, I had weird character fonts show up by paragraphs. Anyway, fixed that too. Also, I spell-checked the document afterward out of an abundance of caution.

4. TWO HOURS - Uploading and previewing, with an emphasis on the previewing part, followed by adjusting my Word doc each time in hopes to solve the glitches I saw on Preview.

And just to clarify, all four of these nonfiction titles I had written last year and uploaded as singles. Since I am not qualified to do these beautiful 3-D covers for the intended collections, my artist, Ron Perovich, worked his magic and provided me with them earlier this month. So that took care of the creation part and the cover art part.

5. HALF HOUR - Now, remember, I had two collections in mind. So once the four-book one was successfully loaded, it took only an additional half hour to tweak it into the three-book collection I also wanted.

Wow! That entails the top two items on my short list of five. The remaining three are my WIPs with WCs less than 7K. I need to read them and assess their viability for a short story, a novella or a novel. I'm so jazzed I might even get to one of those tomorrow.

Doesn't it just feel great when something you've been dreading and procrastinating about turns out to be a job done in less than seven hours?

I maintain it was because one of our homework assignments in my creativity class was to make a list of our five topmost things we would like to get to by year-end (or whatever date we wished—December 1 for me).

Physically writing the list must have alerted my subconscious and, believe me, I had already worked almost six hours on a freelance copyediting job earlier today. So I no plans whatsoever to start (much less finish) these two personal projects into the evening hours of November 17, yet looky here! I beat my optimistic deadline by like almost two weeks.

A-mazing! Carry on, all.

Denise Barker, author + blogger + copy editor

http://bit.ly/DeniseBarkerBlog

http://bit.ly/AMAZONDeniseBarkerEbooks

http://bit.ly/BNDeniseBarkerEBooks

http://bit.ly/SMASHWORDSDeniseBarkerEBooks

http://bit.ly/KOBODeniseBarkerEBooks

A Glimpse Into the Mind-set of a Freelancer

It's hard to explain my lifestyle to someone who hasn't lived it.  But I will try.

I used to think all those people grocery shopping at 10:00 a.m. or 2:00 p.m. during a weekday were well-off, not needing a job, or on vacation like me at the time.  I have come to a new realization.

Yes, they could be rich and have no job.  Or they may work shift work.

Or they may work at home like me and have the freedom to avoid the crowds and shop when there are less people about.

I am proud to be able to work from home. Having spent three decades in my first career imprisoned in high-rises with windows that don't open, driving to work in the dark and/or driving home in the dark, trapped in a 9-to-5 rat race, being tortured by high heels and hose and uncomfortable clothing, I'm all about anything the opposite of that as I live my dream in my second career.

I am an author.

A very happy one supplementing my Amazon/B&N royalty checks with my freelance copyediting projects from a large NYC publishing house.  I thank God for that job.  It was one cog in the serendipity wheel that led me down the yellow brick road to self-employment.

Jumping from two paychecks a month on the first and fifteenth thereof in the same amount each time to wondering where the next one of any sum will come from is a big change.

But it you want it bad enough, like I did, you will happily make the leap into the air, wondering if you will hit earth with a thud, or cold water with no end, or hopefully a nice pillow-soft landing.

And repeat daily.

Ha!

I read somewhere about an entrepreneur who paid half the bills one month and the other half the next, awaiting funds.  Now, I'm geared to be one of those anal types that pays upon receipt of the notice when money is there.  And is filled with guilt when money is not there to do so.  (Comes from a Methodist upbringing.)

As an sole proprietor, you have to get over it.

Yes, I'm sad to say, I have paid bills late.  (Isn't that part of the definition of "self-employed"?) When it becomes "too late" again and again, I seek a day job.

My requirements for this third job (counting author and freelance copy editor) are these:

• no uniforms in the strictest sense of look-alikes purchased from the employer (although I might be convinced to wear a movie theater's if I get to view a whole movie for free each day I work--or even a free one weekly)
• no 9-to-5 (been there, done that, never again)
• some enjoyable perk (like the aforementioned free movie, but also grocery discounts or free food from a favorite restaurant, a matching 401k, etc.)
• not more than five miles (one way) from my home and
• someplace that I am not the sole employee so that I don't feel bad when I give my two-weeks' notice to quit once my real career picks up.

And one day it will, because I refuse to give up.  This is my calling.  This is my gift.  This is where I'm supposed to be.  Persistence counts for a whole bunch in this equation.  Call it stubbornness, if you must.  Either works.

All this will be a funny anecdote to inspire others on the first step of their destiny.

One side note here:  If you don't "fit" somewhere, the problem is not you.  It is where you are.  Don't ever forget that.  God made you "perfect," as is (the basic construction was perfect; we may have added some faults along the way that we must deal with).  Find YOUR place.  The one made specially for you and your unique gifts and talents. 

Back on topic here.  I put off the "day job" acquisition until I really need one, so I don't land a position to keep for a short duration when someone else out there really needs it more.

My first day job was at a pizza place.  I ended up as manager and I think I got 50% off my pizzas, if not for free if the owners were there.  Plus it didn't feel like a job.  I worked with some really great people.  I was there nine months.

Then I took off about fifteen to eighteen months and wrote like 250,000 words spread out over eight novels.  I was in heaven.

Followed by working at one of those box stores where the employees got a ten percent discount.  Made some really good friends there that I'm still in touch with.  That was a two-year stint.  I had no intention of staying there that long but, for one, I needed the extra money to meet the monthly expenses and, for two, you get lulled into the habit until something knocks you in the head to make you look and see if you really need to stay there.

I didn't.

So I've been happily home-bound for the last five months, currently squeaking through a tight spot.  But I still think I see God's handwriting on the wall, telling me to stay put, to stick it through, that good times are coming again.  And soon.

Now, let me be frank.  I live off of one-third what I used to earn.  And it may be another year or two before my e-books start selling enough to write home about, when my royalty checks total more than my freelance gigs.  Meanwhile, I still have a mortgage, but it gets paid.

I've cut out a lot of expenses.  I mean A LOT.  Some that you may consider important.  Some that I considered important.  However, I'm looking long-term, focusing on the brass ring.  Yet I'm grateful for what I have, maybe more so now than ever before.

Plus I have a safety net.  Over these five years in my fledgling career to establish myself as an author, I have two family members who have consistently supported me emotionally--but one was there through all the good times and the bad, and monetarily anytime when it got really rough. He knows who he is and I owe him a lot.  Thank you is the least of it.

So when I write blog posts, such as this favorite of mine and my readers:  "...Like You Are On Vacation," I am inspiring myself as well as others.

I'm keeping my mind-set on TODAY, not tomorrow.  If I have enough for today--and I do--I am blessed.  If I'm focused on THIS day, I am not wallowing in the past--a totally useless endeavor.  If I'm focused on THIS day and fill it with goal-reaching tasks, a dream day, then those will become my past.  And be stepping stones leading to my future. I wish that for everyone.

Now, back to work!

Take the Job that Fills Your Heart--Not Your Wallet

I don't have all the answers, but I do have some, along with many questions that should pique your brain, rouse your curiosity.

I'm an entrepreneur at heart. As an author, I'm All-Indie. I'm one-hundred-percent Indie. But each of us needs to choose our own way. We cannot follow another as our individual paths will differ. However, each success inspires us, spurs us on, encourages us.

One of my wisest precautions to high school and college graduates would be to seriously consider your first job. It is that initial step into your future--highly important on its own--but could also entrap you. I was making good money as a legal assistant. The term is "golden handcuffs" because it is hard to leave a high salary. More difficult for some than others.

But that job was not feeding my soul.

My second career fulfills my heart. That is where my happiness lies. Being an author. Self-employed. Entrepreneur. Creative. Another arm of that is my freelance copyediting work. What could be better? I get paid to read and improve another author's work using my somewhat photographic memory, my knowledge of English grammar and spelling, plus my love of the written word.

Remember Newton's First Law of Motion? A body at rest will remain at rest unless an outside force acts on it, and a body in motion ("inertia") at a constant velocity will remain in motion in a straight line unless acted upon by an outside force.

Based on Newton's findings, one person can remain at rest or that one person can be in constant motion. One.

In order to change that state, "one" needs to be "acted upon by an outside force." A second. Whether person or thing.

What if there is no "second" to knock you into your purpose or to knock you out of the wrong purpose for you?

Watch out for your first job. It could set you up for life in the wrong place. Do some research. If you hate being on the phone and that is what the job is about, then you will be one miserable soul. If it is a rare position, there would be not only the intense competition to get hired, but then no place to go, right? No advancement opps.

You spend so much time at work and, no, it is not forty hours a week. That is some huge misnomer. There is the commute. For me, it was three hours daily at the worst. One-and-a-half hours at the best. Then the "lost" hour for lunch--you don't get paid for it and you can't exactly earn other money at this time.  So we are up to forty-eight hours (or more) a week.

Calculate your salary based on forty-eight hours a week to get a truer picture of what you are earning an hour. And we aren't even going to look at after-tax earnings.

I haven't begun to count overtime hours, or the time getting ready for work, including dry cleaned suit and tie for you guys and heels and hose for us gals, after the showering and shaving and blow-drying hair. Another hour a day. Fifty-three hours a week is the tally now.

Then the associated time involved in having such jobs: dropping off and picking up dry cleaning, buying new hose because the others have runs, putting gas in the car, self-study in connection with your job and what about dropping the kiddos off at school or day care?

There are added costs: the aforementioned childcare services or a maid or a cook or service that provides premade dinners, etc.  Not to mention the added exposure to buy your lunch instead of brown-bag-it, or for those coffee drinks every time you pass a kiosk.

My life has so simplified the moment I quit working for others and began working for myself.

No more buying a tank of gas every four days.  Now is it more like every three to four months.  Even during those times when I need a day job to make ends meets, I still only fill up my tank once every thirty-four days because I find local work, no more than five miles from my home.

No more oil changes every quarter.  Now it is every three years.

No more pantyhose. Hallelujah! I wear comfy clothing.

No more 9-to-5. I work everyday--weekends and holidays--because I am having so much fun. But I get to do it at my choosing, whether 6:00 a.m. to noon, or 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. or 6:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m.

No more three-hour commutes in the dark. I walk eighteen steps to my home office.

No more evil alarm clocks. I wake to the sunlight pouring into my bedroom, or a paw of a hungry cat on my cheek.

This works for me. Seek out what works for you. Happiness trumps more money.

Every time.

Don't have regrets while you are retired, reviewing your life, judging how you spent your time.

Don't die wondering.

. . . Like You Are On Vacation

I just revised my blog header to include a new quote by me, which incidentally is now the closing line before my email signature.  "If your vocation isn't a vacation, then quit, leap, change careers."

Since I work at home a lot, I tend to just "throw something on"--if cool outside, something to keep me warm; if warm outside, something to keep me cool.  Utilitarian.  Practical.  Yet . . . why can't I dress like I'm on vacation?  Wearing those things that bring me joy, make me feel great, cause me to smile and inspire me?

Like I would on vacation.



Why do we save stuff for later?  Save stuff for company?  Save stuff for special occasions?  We should dress everyday like we are on vacation.  Wearing the best of the best our wardrobes offer.

Do not run to the nearest mall.  Unless you have excess cash.  Just go shopping in your own closet; go treasure hunting in your own armoire.

Take that mind-set another step further.  Why can't our residence--in my case, my one and only--be our vacation home?  I subscribe to FLYLady.net and she posts occasionally this great email she received from one of her members.  It was about this wonderful bed-and-breakfast she stayed at.

Come to find out, it was her home.  All organized, decluttered, using her best linens, her wedding china, etc.  Isn't that happiness personified?  That's what I aspire to.  The decluttering part will take me a while as I am a pack rat when it comes to information.  Data.  I save it in bankers boxes.  Many bankers boxes.  It's fuel for my writing.

I have travel tips for various European nations.  I have pictures of homes, people, cars--all in want of a story to be told.  Of course, I collect quotations and favorite Bible verses and recipes.  It's all very important to me.  And it entails time to read through what I've amassed to find the nugget therein.

As per FLYLady, I'll do it fifteen minutes at a time (hopefully twice daily as she recommends).  Her website is in my sidebar under Favorite Links.

Getting back on my main theme here, let's continue with this vacation thinking.  Specifically:  Money.  On a vacation, do you worry about paying your rent, your mortgage?  You probably did that beforehand, calculating whether the old budget could handle this trip and still meet that major obligation.

So, I figure for a vacation to be a true vacation, you aren't worrying about the monthly bills.  You are focused on TODAY.  What to eat with joy and abandon TODAY.  No nagging thoughts about calories or counting carbs.  Well, maybe a few in the mental background.

Still, we set aside pesky internal monologues about bills, calories, and vow to live in the now, in the present, in the TODAY.  Shouldn't we do that even when NOT on vacation?  Before you correct me, yes, we should prevent disease by eating healthier and we should prepare for our future.  However, I didn't say "worry" about our future.

For example, we plant a garden, go on about our other business, reap later.  We don't worry incessantly about whether a seed really will produce a plant.  Granted, I didn't get the green thumb in my family so there have been two attempts at a garden that failed for me, but . . . if you are the same way, think of another analogy here.

Haven't we all worried for days only to have our problem "solved" in a blink later, or avoided altogether?  We wasted all those hours for what?  Stop it now.

While you live "like on vacation," you (1) appreciate more, whether the food you eat, the clothes you wear, the place you inhabit, the outdoors, the weather, etc. and (2) worry less, being more present, which is another form of both gratitude and joy and (3) smile more which makes you happier and is contagious to those around you.  Sounds pretty grand to me.

Do you have healthy loved ones; are you healthy and loved?

Consider yourself uber prosperous--because you are.

Do you have food, clothing and shelter for today?

Consider yourself wealthy--because you are.

Do you have enough money for just this twenty-four-hour period?

Consider yourself rich--because you are.

Do you need something tomorrow?  Pray.  "...yet you do not have because you do not ask."  James 4:2.  Ask of God.  Ask of your family.  Ask what you can do yourself.

Continuing on, do you feel like you are on vacation when you are at work?  I hear the collective groan.  However, I see a few grinning souls too.  Like my new header reads, "If your vocation isn't a vacation, then quit, leap, change careers."  God didn't create us to be unhappy.  God didn't spend all this time surrounding us with intricate beauty for us to be sad.  God didn't fill our lives with blessings for us to be depressed.

Have you ever stopped to inspect a butterfly?  I mean really look at all the magnificent artwork that went into decorating a butterfly's wings?  What about a lily?  Its stamen, its freckles, its tipped petals?  It is said a butterfly lives only like three days.  Yet God went to all the trouble to paint multitudes of different butterflies just so we may see at least one fly by during our day.  Are you even noticing them?  How regrettable to have missed that opportunity.

Back to your job.  If it isn't fun, if it doesn't feed your soul, if you don't begin your day thinking about the great stuff you have awaiting your talents--before you even get up out of bed--then you, my friend, need new employment.

I know, we have to pay bills.  Maybe we should think more about that before we incur them.  Keep that old car, don't buy a new one.  Look for a roommate.  Reduce the monthly expenses we do have so we can take a better job that pays less.  You'll be so much happier for it.

Live each day . . . like you are on vacation.

A Few Websites to Share

I like to read inspirational snippets first thing to start my day off right.  With my schedule I need fast, quick, to-the-point.  So while I have subscribed to others, the very length of them had me unsubscribing.

Here are a few that I would like to pass along to you.

For spiritual-based guidance, check out http://www.marymorrissey.com/.  She offers Life Coach services too, but her daily inspirations are free.

There is a longer recurring email that I’ve kept.  It’s overall great.  See for yourself at http://www.philiphumbert.com/.  Sign up for his free daily doses of TIPS for Extraordinary Living.

For authors, I’ve already mentioned the (monthly?) e-zine of http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/ in a previous blog.  Still worth noting again. 

And lastly, someone to help you in reaching manifold goals.  I met a lovely lady named Sharon Schierling the other day who offers multiple services.  If you need travel arrangements, organizational skills and small business assistance, contact her at one of her websites at http://www.refinedperspectives.com/.

My Midyear Resolution

I am an author with currently three nonfiction e-books offered via both Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Yet I consider myself a novelist first.

So here is my July 5 midyear resolution.  I have two novels written to The End.  However, both need a deep-down final edit.  Courtesy of Margie Lawson's Deep EDITS (trademarked) system, I have about forty-two things to review in each book before either are uploaded for sale.  To accommodate all that, and wanting one novel available online by my birthday in November as my gift to myself, I chose the shorter story to do my first-ever Deep EDITS "practice" run. 

Since my selected novel is a little over two hundred pages and I have almost five full months until my self-imposed deadline, I have apportioned fifty pages to each of the first four months, with the fifth and final month for a final read-through and time set aside for choosing my cover art and uploading all.  That works out to approximately two pages a day for July through October.  That is doable.  Even with my crazy sixty-five-to-eighty-five-hour workweek, that is doable.  If I miss one day, no biggie.  I can allot four pages to the next day.  This is an armadillo I can chew bit by bit.

What midyear resolutions are you willing to commit to?

Wealth

What an emotional word.  And that's where I want your focus for a moment.  On nebulous emotions, thoughts.  I read a lot in the self-improvement literature and find confirmation of my own beliefs.  Since I believe everything is created twice--first in the mind, second in the physical world--it would seem that we create wealth the same way.  First in the mind.

So, your initial thought would be to DECIDE to be wealthy, whatever your definition of the word may be.  Whether $10,000 a month or a year, or some figure higher or lower, go for it.  Truly, finally, irrevocably take a stand.  It surprises me the number of people who seem reluctant to choose.  Simply pick one, if both ways seem equal.  You can always go back and select the other if you don't like the results of the first. 

No Godmother of Wealth is going to give you permission to seek after your desires, your goals, your dream life.  You must do so.  It takes some guts, maybe some life experience, to push us to do so.  Maybe someone telling us we cannot possibly do that.  In the absence of your own declaration, let me do it here for you.  I give you permission to have the wonderful life you were created for.

The next step is to PROCLAIM that you are in charge of your life.  After all, you would need to be in order to manifest the perfect life for you, right?  Again, no one else is going to hand it to you.  Even if you marry a monied person, would that individual share the funds with you or would that person support you emotionally, be able to read your mind on what you really want and need?  A soul mate is still a separate entity and to expect one-hundred-percent compatibility is a fantasy ready to be refuted in reality, plus having a yes-man around all the time would be really boring in my opinion.

However, you can do all those things for yourself, without fear of voicing your dreams to a naysayer or faulty communication getting in the way of sharing those needs and wants to another.  You must declare yourself President of your perfect life, Emperor of your empire, Excellency of your enterprise. 

Then once you have comfortably settled into those two standards--with no negativity rebounding from your own internal editor--set about planning actions that lead directly to your dreams.  Do them.  Each day.  Even small tasks lead to great victories.  Keep at it.  Persistence is part of reaching goals. 

Don't discount the little steps on the way to greatness.

Define Who YOU Are

Building upon my last post, defining your measure of success, with my first ever blog on "I AM," I am blending the two here to focus on you.  Who we are at the core.  Take some real, uninterrupted time for this.  If you were to interview for a job, what three adjectives would best describe you to an interested employer?  Repeat this for an interested soul mate.  For your favorite sport, pastime, hobby.  For your circle of friends, close family members.  For your charities you support.  Get a rounded picture of this unique individual called you. 

Like the morning pages exercise any author would recognize, I recommend establishing a morning habit of reminding yourself of your good qualities.  Begin your waking day with "I am" thoughts.  Such as, I am blessed to be alive, healthy, of sound mind and body.  Make three your goal each day.  Even better, make three DIFFERENT ones your goal each day for a month.

I happen to believe that "I am" statements invoke the cooperation of God.  No matter your religious stance, a practical view of derogatory statements would seem to produce depression, self-denigration, failure.  So choose uplifting and encouraging statements and thoughts instead.  ESPECIALLY when speaking of yourself.  Such a foundation of self leads to thinking well of others--for you cannot give what you do not have.

Give yourself the gift of YOU.

Success, What Does It Mean to You?

Success.  It's a many-faceted word.  To paraphrase Webster's, it's wealth, favor or eminence which is favorable, desired.  Or it can be a person who succeeds.

What does success look like for you?  You need to know so that you will recognize it when it appears in your life.

For me, success is not about the money so much as the freedom it brings me.  I am my own boss.  To me, that is my topmost sole definition of success.  Now, I do require a certain level of income to pay my bills, my mortgage, purchase food, etc.  And I look forward to increasing those earnings to have savings, investments, donations.  A cushion.  A mad money fund.

Yet, in the various self-help books I have read over the decades, there was a common thread found in many about how you succeed financially within your own business--not someone else's.  Not that you cannot become wealthy working for others.  You can.  You start early, you save consistently, you live off of seventy percent of your income.  You retire wealthy.  Still, America was founded on the efforts of the entrepreneur.  There are interesting statistics about entrepreneurs even today.  But I digress.

Stop.  Take even thirty minutes to define your version of success.  Maybe you need to brainstorm words to start.  Or you may prefer the visual approach and need to daydream your perfect twenty-four-hour period in order to translate that vision into the verbal or written mode.  Whichever, I believe we would all benefit from knowing our personal success definition.

That would explain why some books or methods don't reach us.  One may focus on making millions when $400,000 would set us up for life for all our wildest dreams.  Another may offer living off the land and funded largely by elbow grease, which would upset our more comfort-oriented people.  It's not that either approach is wrong as it is "wrong for them."

Keep an open mind.  Take half an hour and delve into your rational and emotional markers for your success.  Then watch as they unfold.

No Speeding Required, Just Consistency

I am hard on myself.  I am a perfectionist.  I have multiple To Do lists that I want to check off each item as completed.

My life is already full of deadlines.  Some set by me.  Goal-oriented deadlines.  Self-determined publication deadlines for my (near) future indie-publishing novels.  Some set by others.  Deadlines related to my freelance copyediting job.  Deadlines surrounding my day job.  Today I found myself dictating a clothes washing mandate.  Setting the timer for thirty minutes.  Which is no big deal.  Not really.  But I had all day.  Why was I pushing myself?  Why was I interrupting my train of thought (whether reading or writing) with a harsh, monotonous, irritating tone every half hour?

Granted, self-direction and self-motivation are great tools for an entrepreneur or author to have.  Just not too much of it.

I am also blessed with determination, consistency, stick-to-itiveness (yes, that is the way Webster’s spells it—I am a freelance copy editor and, by habit, check these things).  Some call me stubborn for embodying such tenacity of spirit.  If “stubborn” is what gets me to beloved bestselling author status, much less any of my other goals, so be it!

So, for today, each time you set a time limit on yourself, ask:  Is this really necessary?  At all?  Or at that interval?  Is it making my day easier or harder?  Is it getting me closer to my dream goal or just weighing me down?  Because it may not be a task that you need to accomplish.  Not today or any day.  Your time could be wiser spent doing other things.  And enjoying it more. 

One more thing.  We all run at different speeds.  My speed is not yours and vice versa.  Be happy with your own speed.    

Sometimes it doesn't feel like we are much in charge of our lives.  However, the decisions are truly ours.

So, decide.  It is your life after all.

Oh, The Freedoms Writing as a Career Brings

Aside from the total creative free reign of being an Indie e-pubbed author, there are other elements to be grateful for.  Such as, all I need is a pen and a notebook to manifest my imaginings.  That was a supreme shock when I was doing a goal-setting projection many many years ago and thinking that I would have to invest in a desktop computer and a home version of word processing software and a printer and a mouse and a scanner and . . . then it hit me.  All I need is a plain old No. 2 pencil and some paper—even scrap paper would do.  Which I had both.  Plus I already owned an electric typewriter (that’s how long ago this was, and yet, not so long ago).  I could type up my handwritten notes.  After all, that’s what Jessica Fletcher does in Murder, She Wrote, right?

Major moment that was.  Money was not stopping me from living my dream of being an author.  Back then, I was blaming my lack of funds for not catapulting me into the career of my choice.  Of course, now, I have that desktop and various bells and whistles of a small home office.  But if the electricity goes out, I can still create.  I can even edit if I have a hard copy of my latest work to review.

And locations.  I am not locked into my home office.  Which does not just mean I can take my laptop and work in the kitchen too.  No, it means I could be anywhere in the world and writing a new novel with paper and pen—on a beach, on a mountain, in a cave with torchlight as my only illumination, in a tent, in a villa, in a shack, in Africa, in a limo (as long as I’m not the one driving—ha!), camping along the Nile, in Egypt staring at the pyramids . . . you get my point.

Aside from the immense freedom of just being my own boss, there is freedom of movement, of locale.  If I want to work outside in the sunshine on my patio, I can.  If I am meeting my author group, I can work in a café, sipping coffee and inspired by the collective energy of such a creative eclectic group of folks I am proud to call friends.

Everything I need to create is within me.  Another light-bulb moment for me, as well.  To document those quickly evaporating ideas into words, I can use old-fashioned means or newfangled trends.  I can grab my purse and go, writing-ready, or add my laptop carrier and use voice-recognition software to type in my own words for me.  It’s my choice.

And I am SO loving the freedom.

Additional Thoughts re "I AM"

Thinking about yesterday’s blog made me remember two items I would like to add.

One, the Bible.  I seek answers from a multitude of sources.  Yet the Bible remains my personal ken on life.  In fact, when I read most self-help books, I can match up many, many, many of their foundational messages to a paraphrase of a verse in the Good Book.  It remains a resource for me, a benchmark, the raised bar to reach for.

 

Two, the “I am” statements.  I wanted to clarify that you may speak your “I am” statements LONG BEFORE anyone else “sees” them in this current reality of space and time.  Take me for example.  I am an author.  Prior to March 27, 2011, you would not have found any online e-books or print paperbacks bearing my name.  Yet years before that I was creating tales of fiction.  While my first remembered piece was a short, short mystery written as a homework assignment in seventh grade and I have written some other pieces since then, I first called myself an author about ten or twelve years ago.  I had submitted a finished short story to a contest.  I did not win.  Nevertheless, that was a major event in my life.

Even so, my actual career shift and serious writing mode began years later in 2007 where I penned eight works-in-progress totaling over 350,000 words by October 2008.  Only in 2011 did I later add my (currently) three nonfiction works.  I continue to manifest new novels and self-help checklists as we speak. 

Everything is created twice:  first in the mind, then in physical form.  That dressmaker’s pattern, that architect’s blueprint, that city planner’s projected new highway—all of them were "secrets" hidden away in your gray matter first, then a two-dimensional or 3-D model or pattern to go by that a few people were privy to before existing in the very public arena of reality.  In that same way, I would suggest keeping your goals to yourself at first while you are incubating that new idea and then expose it only to a select few of the supportive people you know who maintain positive can-do outlooks.  Then once it is a fait accompli, you can share your successful finished creation to the public.

So, keep in mind you must initially decide who you are, state your "I am" as your first step to becoming the new improved you and continue to act on that declaration.  All that foundational work is unseen by onlookers.  Like the roots of a plant are developed first before the blossom and fruit.  Thereafter, once you are reaping the harvest from the thoughts and idea "seeds" you have planted, enabling you to grow into the fullness of your declared “I AM,” then other people will see it too.  Don’t feel like a fraud for deeming it so initially.