Something’s Stirring

Olympic Mountains in Washington State

“We all hope for breakthrough rebirth moments.” ~ Dane Cook

“I give you this to take with you: Nothing remains as it was. If you know this, you can begin again, with pure joy in the uprooting.” ~ Judith Minty, Letters to My Daughters

For quite some time I’ve felt like I’m being reborn, or about to go in a new direction. This has made me restless. I am impatient to apply the new things I’m learning, meet new people, live in a new place, and try new activities.

Even though I feel the change galloping toward me, it’s not here yet. I’m finding it hard to be patient. And yet, this process can’t be rushed. My new life is still in an embryonic state, in which I’m gathering information, transforming old ideas into new, and letting go of attitudes and emotions that will not serve the new me.

What make it frustrating to be so idle is the fact that we live in a fast paced society. We’re supposed to “get ‘er done.” Therefore I judge myself. But the seed underground and the butterfly in her chrysalis are doing momentous work that will produce beautiful results. Their work is not visible to those of us who are rushing around accomplishing important things. Constant rushing is not good. We stress ourselves out when what we need is time to recoup.

To be honest, I didn’t have a clue about what I was going to write today. Since the turn of the new year, all I want to do is read, sleep, ruminate about life, work on my writing projects, and enjoy nature. Like Wayne Dyer said once, sometimes the connections to God (or my creative endeavors) are corroded and need to be cleaned up before the channel is clear enough to hear the messages. Maybe that’s what this fallow time is all about, cleaning the gunk off my creative connections.

Out of guilt and since I signed up for The No Pants Project, or to finish up the old to clear the way for what’s to come, I’ve gone back to plodding through the lessons. This “week” is about marketing. It’s something I know very little about. Some of what Mike is asking me to do sounds fun, some really uncomfortable. However, I’ve suspended my judgment and am getting a lot of new ideas from the videos. Right now I’m not acting on any of them. They are going into my bank of things I’m considering for future use. This material is foreign to me. I want to see the whole picture before I make actionable plans.

One of the things Mike suggests for entrepreneurs is to create a Facebook group. At first, I was skeptical. I’m an introvert! Why would I want to administer a Facebook group that I have to maintain and check every day? But I let that new idea percolate for a while. Part of being a good student is to take in new information and allow it to challenge my long held beliefs. Because I did that, today I saw Mike’s suggestion in a new way. Would starting a group for creative introverts be beneficial? I don’t even know if there are any such groups on Facebook, but I’m willing to do some investigation, because another suggestion Mike makes is to join groups of specific interest to me. If I reach out, who knows what will come of it? It might be the miracle that will get me off of stuck.

So, I’m in a holding pattern. I kind of like that, though, because I’ve settled into this quiet time of contemplation and renewal where I can try on new states of being and excavate for talents I might be able to develop.

Maybe that’s what winter is about for humans as well as plant and animal life, hibernation, a time of renewal and rest.

Thanks for reading, liking and commenting. I appreciate it very much. I hope the weekend is a blessed one for all of you.

Lucinda Sage-Midgorden © 2019

Lucinda is the author of The Space Between Time, an award finalist in the “Fiction: Fantasy” category of the 2017 Best Book Awards. It’s a little bit like Outlander in that it’s a historical, time-travel, magical realism, novel. Only Jenna joins consciousness with her three-times great-grandmother, Morgan, instead of traveling physically. She is able to come back and apply what she’s learned to her real life situations.

The Space Between Time is available in all ebook formats at Smashwords, or you can find the ebook at iBooks or Barnes and Noble. If you prefer a physical copy, you can find a print-on-demand version at Amazon. Stay tuned for news on the audiobook version Lucinda is working on. To join her email list, click here. She will never sell the names on her list.

Procrastination

Mary Engelbreit’s calendar art

“Procrastination makes easy things hard, hard things harder.” ~ Mason Cooley

“Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.” ~ Pablo Picasso

I’ve never thought of myself as a big procrastinator, but recently I’ve had to acknowledge that I have been procrastinating for the last few months on my second novel.

This same thing happened to me when I was writing my first novel, The Space Between Time. I came to a place in the story where I got stuck. Something was nagging at the outer edges of my mind, but I couldn’t quite grasp it. At first I reread what I’d already written over and over, revised, and eventually set the book aside to work on other projects. The story was still alive and percolating on the back burner of my mind. But the story hadn’t matured quite yet.

That’s where I’ve been with the sequel novel, Time’s Echo for quite some time. It’s frustrating because the subject matter is very relevant to what’s happening right now with the women’s movement. I want to get it finished, and yet … I have to acknowledge I’m not sure where the story wants to end up. I also feel like maybe the story will be shallow if I push it through to publication. And I have a bit of self-doubt. Do I have what it takes to write this storyline?

There is another aspect to the almost complete shut down of this novel. I’m a recovering people pleaser. I struggle with putting other people’s needs before my own.

This fall a writer friend of mine suffered some serious health issues and is now in a care center. She won’t have to be there forever, but she’s obviously depressed. I wanted to make her feel better, so when I told her I was working on the audiobook of my novel, she brightened up and asked if I would be willing to do the audio version of a middle grade novel she had written titled, The Dragon’s Gold. I loved the book, so, of course, I said yes without thinking of the consequences. I could have asked her to wait until I’d finished my own book, but I wanted to pay her back for all she has done for me, so I suggested recording a couple of sample chapters and that was it, what I was working on went by the wayside.

Doing an audiobook is very time consuming. I had only begun to learn how to do the recording and editing process, but I wasn’t proficient quite yet. Her project became my lab experiment. It took me a little over two months to complete the nearly 250 page novel. And, once I had put my novel plans on hold, other projects swept in to take up my time.

The Dragon’s Gold is now in my friend’s hands to approve, and I’ve come to my senses. I need to make myself and the things I’m working on the highest priority. I need to stop procrastinating, rest and fill up my own well. If I don’t I won’t be of any use to myself, or anyone else.

The thing I’m learning about procrastination is that once I’ve decided to go back to my various ventures, it’s hard to get the momentum back. However, I am relieved by something my sister said recently when we were talking about this. She’d heard an interview with Ken Follett, in which he said that it takes him a long time to write his novels partly because they are so dense. They take place over many years, there are lots of characters, and a lot things happen to them during the course of the book. That made me feel better because The Space Between Time was a little bit like that and Time’s Echo is likely to be the same. They don’t take place over as many years as Follett’s books, but my characters do go through tribulations that cause them to grow. As my writer friend I just did the audiobook for once said, “You can’t rush your characters through their process. If you beat them up a bit, the reader feels more satisfied at the end when the characters learn their lessons.”

As an empath, I shy away from beating up my characters. That might be part of my procrastination as well. I know I need to create drama for them, but man it’s difficult to feel their pain and write it down so the reader does too. But that’s my job, and I need to do it. However,I guess I can’t rush the writing process either.

I’ll let you know how that’s going. No more taking on other people’s stuff until I’m on a better footing with my own.

Thanks for reading, liking, commenting, and for the reblog of one of my recent posts. Have a fun weekend and stay warm if you’re expecting winter storms.

Lucinda Sage-Midgorden © 2019

Lucinda is the author of The Space Between Time, an award finalist in the “Fiction: Fantasy” category of the 2017 Best Book Awards. It’s a little bit like Outlander in that it’s a historical, time-travel, magical realism, novel. Only Jenna joins consciousness with her three-times great-grandmother, Morgan, instead of traveling physically. She is able to come back and apply what she’s learned to her real life situations.

The Space Between Time is available in all ebook formats at Smashwords, or you can find the ebook at iBooks or Barnes and Noble. If you prefer a physical copy, you can find a print-on-demand version at Amazon. Stay tuned for news on the audiobook version Lucinda is working on. To join her email list, click here. She will never sell the names on her list.

Don’t Judge a Story by Its Reputation

“As I get older, the more I stay focused on the acceptance of myself and others, and choose compassion over judgment and curiosity over fear.” ~ Tracee Ellis Ross

“The anarchist painter is not the one who will create anarchist pictures, but the one who will fight with all his individuality against official conventions.” ~ Paul Signac

The other day I was working on an essay for the memoir book my sister and I are writing about movie chats with our father. The essay is about the movie Back Street, with Susan Hayward, John Gavin, and Vera Miles (1961). The story is based on a book by Fanny Hurst. And being a movie nerd, I did a bit of research on the production and on Fanny Hurst, who created the original source material. When she was alive, her work was considered to be popular pulp fiction, not high brow literature and not worthy of scholarly notice. But in the 1990s scholars began reexamining Hurst’s work. The Feminist Press published a collection of her work which dated between 1912 to 1932. They praised her “depth, intelligence, and artistry as a writer,” (as reported in an article about her in Wikipedia). Hurst was an activist for feminist and human rights causes and her views are reflected in her stories.

I’m attracted to stories that challenge our conventional view of reality. Fanny Hurst did that with more than one of her stories. Cultural conventions in the twentieth century taught us that marriage was sacred. To have an affair broke the rules of society. But in Back Street, Hurst creates an abusive, narcissistic wife, Liz who will not consent to a divorce. She likes the prestige and power that comes with her marriage. Liz is contrasted to “the other woman”, Rae who is successful, independent, loving and kind. If I were in the character Paul’s shoes, I’d fall in love and break the rules with Rae too. After all, we all need love no matter where it comes from.

Since I can’t keep myself from thinking about how other stories might relate, I connected Back Street to Aquaman, which we just saw last weekend. Barry and I are big fans of the movies based on graphic novels including the DC and Marvel superhero genre of movie. We don’t read the books, at least we haven’t started reading them yet, but the stories are compelling and relevant for what’s happening in society now. We have brilliant people like Stan Lee to thank for making great stories accessible to everyone, not just people who might be inclined to read only highbrow literature.

Now don’t get me wrong, I think any story is worth examining, whether it’s considered high or low brow. There can be important messages hidden in both. And one of the most important messages in Aquaman is that sometimes qualities taken from two or more different races can combine to make an extraordinary human being. Arthur who becomes Aquaman, is both human and Atlantean. He grew up in the human world but must unite both worlds to prevent a war that will destroy the planet. He’s a humble man with great integrity and a desire to help others. He doesn’t think of himself as a great leader. When the moment comes for him to face the creature protecting the symbol of his leadership, he tells the creature, “I’m nobody.” And that’s something no one trying to gain the object of power had ever said. Arthur doesn’t want to be a leader, but he’s willing to become one to save the planet.

When Stan Lee died a couple of months ago, I heard that there were people who scoffed at the outpouring of grief over his passing. The sentiment was that he ONLY wrote graphic novels. He didn’t cure diseases, or invent some monumental thing that would help humanity. But that’s not true. He invented so many characters who have helped change the way we view ourselves and our world. After all, he created Black Panther, one of the most influential characters in any movie to come along in a very long time.

There are other writers who have created enduring characters, like William Moulton Marston who created Wonder Woman, another iconic character who has changed the way we view women.

It’s my theory, and maybe I got this from Edward R. Morrow, that stories have power to change our attitudes, emotions, and in the long run our societies. It may take centuries for that change to take effect, but at some point critical mass can’t be avoided. The balance teeters in a new direction and society is made anew, sometimes almost without notice. I’m grateful when I find writers, like Fanny Hurst, Stan Lee, and William Moulton Marston, who help me examine my long held beliefs and think of human interactions in new ways.

In the past I’ve been guilty of looking down my nose at certain types of fiction, romance novels for one, as light entertainment with not much redeeming value. But one never knows when the catalyst for change will come along. I think I’ll change my mind and reserve judgment and just enjoy the ride a story takes me on and see how I’m changed in the process.

Thanks for reading, liking and commenting. I appreciate it. Have a fabulous weekend.

Lucinda Sage-Midgorden © 2019

Lucinda is the author of The Space Between Time, an award finalist in the “Fiction: Fantasy” category of the 2017 Best Book Awards. It’s a little bit like Outlander in that it’s a historical, time-travel, magical realism, novel. Only Jenna joins consciousness with her three-times great-grandmother, Morgan, instead of traveling physically. She is able to come back and apply what she’s learned to her real life situations.

The Space Between Time is available in all ebook formats at Smashwords, or you can find the ebook at iBooks or Barnes and Noble. If you prefer a physical copy, you can find a print-on-demand version at Amazon. Stay tuned for news on the audiobook version Lucinda is working on. To join her email list, click here. She will never sell the names on her list.

The Answers are Inside You

All the Love and Support We Need

“Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.” ~ Rumi

“We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be.” ~ Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

Over the last few years I’ve been much more conscious of living in the present moment. This has affected the way I look at the noise of the media and the things they think are important.

The media, social and otherwise, like to spew information for how we can all be living a better life. On any given day you will find articles about the 10 foods you should never eat, the 5 best exercises, tips for growing your business, how to remove belly fat, and on-and-on. This has all begun to grate on my nerves.

As I’ve focused on the present moment, I’ve become less tolerant of the tsunami of advice circulating over all the media networks. For the last few months I’ve been contemplating why I’m so impatient with all this free, and sometimes not so free, advice.

Today I can finally articulate what has been bothering me. All of the people offering advice are asking me to depend on them, or someone else, for the answers to my problems. In reality, I am the repository of all the help and support I will ever need. The answers to the questions I have about my life can’t be found “out there” unless my inner guides point me to bit of information I need.

I think I’ve known this all along. I’ve never been big on joining groups or organizations, particularly ones that want it’s members to follow a set of rules or policies. When I was growing up during the 60s and 70s it was fashionable for people on a spiritual quest to find a guru. There were even TV shows, like Kung Fu, that were enormously popular with that idea as a central theme. But as I progressed along my own spiritual growth, I discovered that I may connect with certain teachers for a time, but after I gained the insights I needed, I felt it was time to move on.

When I began teaching public school and now at the college level, I have been an advocate for students finding their own answers to the questions we all inevitably have about life. What works for me, might not work for you. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it, we must all do the work of figuring out our purpose for being on this planet. That’s a lifelong process. I’m still working on how I can best be of use to the other beings living here.

Being your own guru means you’ve got to trust yourself. That’s sometimes a difficult and scary thing to do, but take it from someone who’s been at this a long time, you can do it! It’s all a matter of changing your focus from the outside noise to the quiet inside yourself. You might be amazed at how much happier you will be if you listen to what it is you really want and go for it.

I wrote this post to remind myself that I may find answers outside myself from time to time, but I was really the one who pointed that information out to myself. And I’m reminding myself to be a better listener to my emotions and inner guidance.

By the way, I’m applying one thing I learned this fall from The No Pants Project by adjusting the description of my novel, The Space Between Time, below. See what you think of it and let me know.

I hope you had a wonderful holiday season. It’s a fresh new year to learn, grow, and create something amazing. I’m looking forward to seeing what develops.

Thanks for reading, liking and commenting. I appreciate all of you.

Lucinda Sage-Midgorden © 2019

Lucinda is the author of The Space Between Time, an award finalist in the “Fiction: Fantasy” category of the 2017 Best Book Awards. It’s a little bit like Outlander in that it’s a historical, time-travel, magical realism, novel. Only Jenna joins consciousness with her three-times great-grandmother, Morgan, instead of traveling physically. She is able to come back and apply what she’s learned to her real life situations.

The Space Between Time is available in all ebook formats at Smashwords, or you can find the ebook at iBooks or Barnes and Noble. If you prefer a physical copy, you can find a print-on-demand version at Amazon. Stay tuned for news on the audiobook version Lucinda is working on. To join her email list, click here. She will never sell the names on her list.

Family Connections

Arizona Butterfly

“Forgiveness is the final form of love.” ~ Reinhold Niebuhr

“Forgive me my nonsense, as I also forgive the nonsense of those who think they talk sense.” ~ Robert Frost

During this visit to family for the holidays, we’ve been able to reconnect with my father’s last living brother. It’s been over twenty years since we last saw him, and we’ve all been through lots of life altering experiences. Seeing my uncle again and hearing the stories of his painful experiences has caused me to reflect on relationships and just how complicated they are. Each of us carry wounds, some healed, some still seeping. But for me the meaning of Jesus life, and that of the other great teachers like him, is that we must learn to forgive those who have wounded us, and forgive ourselves for being thoughtless.

When we think of forgiveness, we often think of the person who has been hurt, but not about the person who caused the pain. Having been the perpetrator of hurt feelings, I know that when I hurt someone else, I feel terrible that I could have done such a thing and I berate myself endlessly. Okay, I know not everyone is sensitive, or has empathy enough to regret what they did, but still there are always two sides to any story when someone gets hurt. And often there are two wounds that need to be addressed and healed.

This year there has been a lot of talk about how uncivil our society has become, and that we need to be kinder to each other. Social media has become littered with landmines of nasty comments. But I have to remind myself that when someone lashes out with hate, they are trying to get rid of their own negative feelings. So, I go back to one of my life themes, if we want to rebuild our personal relationships and create a kinder society, we have to begin with loving ourselves. Then we can spread kindness within our smaller circle of friends and family. This creates a ripple effect that will transform our personal relationships and our society into one that most of us say we want.

I try to remember that we’re all a member of the human family and that no one is perfect. Often we’re in our own little worlds and aren’t as mindful as we could be when interacting with others. We cause harm where none was intended. I’m a firm believer in the idea that we’re all doing the best we can all the time. And that not everyone has the same level of life coping skills. So, maybe we should do what Atticus Finch suggests to Scout; put on someone else’s shoes and walk around in them for a while. Doing that might help us not only see where we’ve caused pain, but also see that the people who hurt us might not have intended what happened. They were just living their lives and doing the best they could at the time.

Here’s to creating a great 2019!

Thanks for reading, liking, and commenting. I appreciate it.

Lucinda Sage-Midgorden © 2018

Lucinda is the author of The Space Between Time, an award finalist in the “Fiction: Fantasy” category of the 2017 Best Book Awards. It’s a historical, time-travel, magical realism, novel, and is available in all ebook formats at Smashwords, or you can find the ebook at iBooks or Barnes and Noble. If you prefer a physical copy, you can find a print-on-demand version at Amazon. Stay tuned for news on the audiobook version Lucinda is working on. To join her email list, click here. She will never sell the names on her list.