Mitch Albom on Goodreads

Image Cred: PublicDomainPictures: CC

Mitch Albom is one of my inspirations. I love his voice. I love the spiritual direction of his books.

My good friend, Ana, introduced me to, "Tuesdays with Morrie" many years ago. I have enjoyed his writing ever since. 

It was great to hear him answer my question and I am going to take the advice he gives throughout the video and apply it to my own writing process. 

Watch live streaming video from goodreads at livestream.com

Discover Goodread's upcoming Livestream chats here. The moderator, Patrick Brown explains all about Goodreads before the interview.

Goodreads also has past videos with relevant authors to view, including Ann Rice and Markus Zusak, among others.

If you have an account on the site, look up the pages of your favorite authors and add those that you would like to follow on their page. Goodreads will notify you through e-mail and on your home page if one of your authors will be interviewed, as well as the specifics (date, time). 

You can then (previous to the live interview), as I did, post your questions and they may be posed to the author in the interview. 

I never really thought mine would get answered, but it did.

It was almost as if Mitch was hanging out here at the library with me on one of the adjacent occasional chairs. Well, almost.

What did you think of the interview? Let's talk about it! Consider leaving a comment below.

Help Me Choose my Author Name!

Photo Credit: Wikilmages : CC

So how's this for being smug? 

I am a quarter of the way into my first novel, one that has taken me years to devise the feel and direction of, another year to write to it's current state, and I am already trying to figure out cover details.

No Agent, No Publisher, No book deal, yet ready to go! 

Perhaps I am procrastinating, maybe. It may be that I am dreaming, could be?! 

I believe that it will all work out for me, and why not have a little fun in the meantime? 

Could you help me out? 

These are the names that I will not dare to deviate from, since they are all authentically me, most born with, one married into, and so these are my choices; 

GO TO POLL

Surrendering to Silence

There was a time, not that long ago in fact, when I was absolutely sure I didn’t care much for silence. 

It was the fault of that little contraption in my head, I was sure, incased there within my skull that incessantly nagged at me with things I needed to do.

“Put a load in the washing machine,” it ordered, “You haven’t called so-and-so back,” it chided, “Why can’t you keep your children’s fingerprints off the sliding door?” it sneered. The silence succeeded in having me running around in endless exasperation, continuously berating myself. 

I realized that I feared silence. 

Then it happened, only a few short years ago, that my youngest reached Kindergarten age and I had no choice but to meet the dreaded quiet on a daily basis for several hours at a time. 

All at once my life began to change. 

At first I had to force myself to deal with it. It became easier and easier to accept the voice in my head when I met it head on, instead of running away serving endless volunteer hours and constantly scheduling coffee dates. 

I reasoned that I should be enjoying it since many parents would give their right arm and leg for a few hours of peace. I definitely knew this to be true as my husband traveled and my family lived in Canada making it hard to help me out. 

Once I gave myself a reason to enjoy it, I learned more about who I am than I ever thought possible, all through meditation.

One important thing I learned was that I may not be the extrovert that I once thought I was. I didn’t realize how zapped of energy I was when I constantly placed myself among my peers. 

It became clear to me that I function much better socially and physically when I have time alone to recharge. Overall, when I had sufficient amount of time to myself, I felt lighter, happier and I had more energy. In broader terms, I was more fulfilled.

Picture by Moyan Brenn, Flickr CC

If that wasn’t enough of a benefit, there was even more to this silence than I had already learned. I started meditating and then I realized how critical it is to cultivate a healthy inner environment. Especially as a parent, when there are days that require an endless amount of patience for optimum mental well-being. 

I know what you may be thinking, some of you are still of the persuasion that mediating is a new-age thing. Well, if that is the case, you can’t deny that, stigma, or not, the benefits of meditating are numerous. 

The Mayo Clinic, for instance, lists a variety of emotional benefits including better management of stress, increased self-awareness, in addition to reducing negative emotions. The health benefits are also many, especially those that are magnified by increased stress such as asthma, allergies, anxiety, heart disease and sleep disorders. 

For a more extensive list visit, 
Mayo Clinic Meditation-

If you are unsure of how to start in this new venture, there are a few tools available to you online. I will share a few of my most favorite free guided meditation sites to help you along on your journey; 

Fragrant Heart-

A great place to learn exactly what to do with your body to gain the most out of the meditation. It changes with each of the different meditations, which range from those that are related to health and healing, all the way to visualizing what you want, so you can manifest it in life. 

Will Smith is well known for his belief that he manifested the success in his life by writing a check to himself for 3 million dollars. If Will can do it, so can we, right? Absolutely. The meditations on this site also vary in time. Perfect for us busy parents. We only need 5 minutes to be well. 

The Chopra Center-

You may know Deepak Chopra from his many book publications on a variety of topics including spirituality and meditation. He recently coordinated a 21-day meditation challenge with Oprah encouraging countless people to institute meditation into their lifestyle. 

This is a wonderful resource with excellent guided meditations to help in many areas of your life including meditations to awaken your creativity, your abundance, selections for your health as well as to help you remember your dreams. 

There is even a meditation for helping institute world peace. What a relief, if we all help with that one, the beauty contestants may finally get their most dearest wish fulfilled. 

In closing, I’m not suggesting that you brave the Himalaya’s in winter so you can join a temple full of Tibetan monks and take a vow of silence. However, I do hope you gain the motivation to take a few minutes a day to meditate. 

Perhaps getting up a little earlier in the morning for you-time, or ending your day concentrating on your breath and gaining a mountain of inner peace. 

This may be the thing that you have needed all along. The most important part is that you didn’t even have to leave your house, it was there within you all along.

READCON and Music Was All I Needed...

Writing a novel is tough work- Understatement of the century!

One thing that helps with inspiration is being with people who write and yesterday I showed up at  READCON to find that spark. I was able to fill that need-and then some! Think books, brews, and cool people.

I began the day at READCON only slightly connected to the writing world, I was filled maybe halfway up to my knees with the writing spirit. That sensation of being cut-off from what the "real" writers were up to, of floating precariously around them in that pseudo-writer space, the doubts of whether I fit into their neat little bubble faded away.

Essentially, it is the very essence of people that we require time to be with like-minded people to feel right. Therefore, people who write need to be with people who write to feel RIGHT... Dr. Suess is invading my headspace!

Seek out other writers, seek out conferences, do anything to practice your craft, to learn new techniques, to feel passionate about the lifestyle.

What also helps me is to feed the emotion and feeling directly to my brain through the appropriate music. This is what I am listening to now while I write...It is the heart and soul of my story.







Photo Credit CC



 
What do you do to allow yourself to intimate what you already are? 
How do you align yourself with that desired schemata?