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Sometimes, you'd prefer a soapbox in the town square
An ideal client becomes a match made in entrepreneurial heaven when she meets a tech mishap with "well, it is Mercury Retrograde..."
If you're not familiar with that concept, you and I can still be great friends, of course. And if you're wondering, Mercury Retrograde happens three or four times a year. The planet seems to move backwards for about three and a half weeks. During that time, things here on earth seem to go a bit haywire. Communications are garbled. Travel is difficult. Technology refuses to cooperate.
Standard astrological advice has it that you should avoid signing contracts and launching new endeavors. And every stargazer since the dawn of time recommends that you absolutely, never ever ever offer any webinars.
Today's Story Triangle webinar was a tech dis-AAAAA-ster. (But that's ok.)
I can't guarantee that 20 minutes of tech hiccups at the start of today's webinar will teach me to heed the ancients and stick to contemplatively "taking stock" during Retrograde. Nope, I'll just mutter about why everything seems so hard and retroactively check the calendar over at MysticMamma like I always have.
No, what I learned was that when you consistently deliver value to the people who need it, they trust you. And they'll stick with you when you frantically enter in the chat box "please bear with us, we're working on it!"
I am deeply grateful to the members of my community who reminded me to breathe and stuck around and told me "Thank you Marisa!
But I do fantasize about that soapbox
Once upon a time, when you had something to say, the only technology you needed was a loud voice. If you wanted to get all fancy, you borrowed a soap box so the crowd could see and it could become a "multimedia" presentation.
But, since you probably aren't going to be able to make it to Main Street in New Paltz, NY for the next Story Triangle session, I guess I'll stick to the internet.
I checked the calendar, and Mercury Retrograde ends on May 22. Let's do this thing again (perhaps with a more reliable webinar platform). Join me on May 24, will you?
The best writing advice you'll ever want to ignore
“Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It's the one and only thing you have to offer.” - Barbara Kingsolver
This is some of my favorite writing advice. Some of the time.
Kingsolver is right. Writing for the marketplace and trying to please the masses every time you tell a story sets you on the path toward mediocrity and misery. There's no guarantee that anything will sell or that anyone will care. If you don't at least write for yourself, you're writing for no one at all.
And yet... Kingsolver is not talking to bloggers, to those of us who are writing to build a business and connect with the people whose lives will be changed by the programs you offer and the services you provide.
For us, there must be a time for diving deep and figuring out the message. You need time to look within in find the Sovereign Story that you must share with your community.
But then, it's necessary to open the doors and the windows and the browser and the Facebook feed. You need to look to what people are worried about and longing for and use your writing to connect your personal stories with the stories they need to hear.
I've created a class called the Story Triangle that gives you insight into how to honor your audience, your story, and yourself when you sit down to create online content. It will change the way you look at blogging and connecting to your clients.
In Case You Need One More Reminder: Yes, Your Story Matters
This line is wrapped up in a longer sentence in the prologue of Mary Karr's memoir Lit.
To say that she had me at hello is a terrific understatement.
In this case, she is speaking to her son when she says "Maybe by telling you my story you can better tell yours, which is the only way home," but I think it is true for any relationship.
In a family, in a friendship, at work, or in the relationship between storyteller and audience, everyone is freer to speak the truth when someone is brave enough to tell their story and invite others to do the same.
Come with me as we explore the relationships that make strong stories. Sign up for the free Story Triangle class that's live at 1 PM ET on Wednesday, May 11.
To Become a Stronger Storyteller, Don't Write. Explore.
Sometimes the best way to strengthen your storytelling and feed your writing practice is to take a time away from the page.
When my husband asks me what I want for Mother's Day, "time to myself" is always near the top of the list. I was looking forward to an hour with my journal to write and mourn my mom and follow a thought from beginning to end without having to play referee or ask anyone if they needed to use the potty.
But then, as he started to pack everyone in the car, it became clear that I needed to savor an even rarer pleasure - time alone with my older daughter.
As a rule, she asks for more of my focused attention than I could ever provide. Today, however, as we explored the acres of awakening woods behind our house, just the two of us, we met unfathomable abundance. Amidst the unfurling ferns, the scattering of wild strawberries, and the countless fairy dens, I could give her all she asked for and more.
Was it the magic of the date on the calendar, when the ubiquitous celebration of mother love made me a better mama than usual? Can I think Nature's May display of infinite enoughness? Was it simply that my relationship with my daughter makes sense when we have time and space enough to hold it?
On Sundays, the #365StrongStories project is devoted to offering up a writing prompt. This week, I invite you to take part in a BEING prompt.
Go out and explore. Break a writing date with yourself and wander with eyes wide open. Say "yes" and spread your arms wide to the unexpected. When it's time, come back to the pen or keyboard and start something new.
This Is Why We Write: a Mother, a Prayer, and an Answer
Why write? Because sometimes you give yourself the gift of scribbling down a fervent prayer. And then, years later you get to read it from the other side when you're living an answer.
Six years ago, I used to pour my earnest, new mother's heart into a blog called The Girl Who Cried Epiphany. (Heavens! I was a babe in the blogging woods - I use "one" like the academic I used to be!)
On this Mother's Day Eve, I discovered what was essentially a journal entry. I wrote the post as I looked at my newborn and worried over what would happen at the other end of my maternity leave.
Prayer is a word I have and flirted with and danced around and fled from. I used to worry about the term’s religious baggage. Also, I have worried that I did not know how to do it properly.
Now, I know that no tradition has a monopoly on prayer and I am aligning myself with Spirit, not with a specific tradition when I talk about the practice. As for concerns about whether I am doing it right, well, I want to say I really don’t have time for that stuff any more.
Motherhood makes you appreciate each activity a little more because you have less time to spend on everything. Every breath in downward dog is deeper because you don’t know when a wail from the next room will pull you from the mat. Every chance you get to type with two hands because baby is sweetly sleeping in her sling is to be treasured and exploited fully. Even though a huge part of me is dedicated to simply experiencing Moira each day, the other side of that equation means that efficiency is more important than ever. This applies even to talking Goddess or God, or whatever I am calling the Divine on a given day.
Like I said, I do not have time to worry about whether I am crafting perfect prayers, I just have to unleash my soul’s dialog and hope the ideas organize themselves.
And yet, I am left to wonder, how literal is Spirit? What matters more, the intention of one’s petition or the way one words the prayer, the way one might craft them into mantra?
My deepest prayers as I look into my baby girl’s great blue eyes are that we may find a way for me to stay home with her full time. I always knew I didn’t want to be a working mom, but I thought that was because it would be too draining to do both and because I never liked my job that much. Never could I have imagined the all consuming love that would make being with my daughter a need not a simple desire.
And so I have found my days and nights filled with a constant refrain: “Please, please, please let me stay home with my baby.”
But then, I wonder about how true “be careful what you wish for” really is. What if the Universe decides to answer my most fervent prayers through a lay off? You see, it’s economics that is keeping me at work. Not only do I need the courage to leave the security of my job, but I also need to find another source of income to make staying home the idyllic portrait of mother and child that I dream of.
And so, here I write, six and a half years later, a second child born and weaned, several lean seasons survived, a business built and growing.
I'm left to marvel that I did find the courage to leave that job and to feel sick at the "how." Then, I didn't know anything much beyond the mystery of prayers and their answers. Turns out, it wasn't a lay off but my mother's unexpected death a few months after my daughter's birth that broke my heart even as it allowed me my heart's desire.