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You Define Success. Bottom Line.

Posted on April 7, 2017 by Heloise Jones
1

You know what I mean when I say success, right?

Because the word success is everywhere. Books are written about it. Attributes of successful people are discussed. We use the word to describe and evaluate businesses, careers, individuals, processes, and products. So, when you consider yourself, your creative pursuits, your circumstance, and your future, how do they stack up?

I’ll tell you a story. I moved to a new town. Left a writing community I’d had for years. One where writers had turned into friends I felt connected with, no matter where we were in our creative process. My first act in my new town was to join a writing group. The leader & teacher sent an intake form to see who I was. In short order after I replied she let me know she didn’t think I was a good fit for her group. You can imagine where I went with that.

But what she wrote was ‘you are much too successful for this group.’ Those exact words. Successful. She viewed my years of classes, workshops & retreats, my publications, the fact I wrote a novel, once had a literary agent as success. In hindsight, a gift. But it hurt. I didn’t feel successful. I hadn’t reached my goals. I’d reached levels. Like a bestselling book & fine tea, successes as part of the process on the road to being a success by my definition.

This is big for creatives, especially in an atmosphere where it seems so few have success by traditional standards. Where myths abound, like the starving artist, the disappearance of print books, and the doom of slow writers. Where lessons, teachers, and gurus tell us the ‘right’ way to create. And the truth is we’re the only ones who can define success for ourselves. How we define it affecting our experience in life and our writing.

Take a moment now, ask yourself:

  • What do I want in my life?
  • What do I choose?
  • What does my writing mean to me?
  • How do I want to feel as I live my best creative life?

These questions are not simple to answer. And your answers will evolve.

For each thing you do, ask again. Notice your expectations shift.

As one author said about her book launch. . .she didn’t sell books, there weren’t as many people as she’d hoped, but it was a success. Because she knows what her writing means to her and she’d defined success as connection with new people, and she connected with each person there.

We’ve got big stuff happening in the country right now, including who and what we are as a nation & people redefined to the world by those in power. The arts and humanities may well be defunded. Supports eliminated for writers and creatives. I believe this is, in part, because there’s a huge divide on the definition of success people hold for themselves. But writers and artists hold the Vision for those who can’t see, the words for those who don’t have them, and the conscience of society. It’s truly up to us to consider how we define success for ourselves. To ask those four important questions above.

Author & artist Mary Anne Radmacher says, “. . .even from a dark night songs of beauty can be born.”

We can create songs of beauty.

“Set an intention for yourself at the beginning of each month, writers. Write it on a Post-it
and stick it to your dashboard, to your corkboard, to the door so you’ll see it on your way out.
Find out what happens when you remind yourself on a daily basis of
something that’s meaningful to you, or to which you aspire.”
~ Brooke Warner, publisher & author

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Posted in art, books, publications, writers, writing | 1 Reply

Taking Off My Clothes

Posted on March 8, 2016 by Heloise Jones
5

Jeff's teaI always say a birthday starts when you think about it, and ends
when you forget you have one. Can be a day, or a month.
Not having friends close in community here,
the moment I opened this b’day gift of honey was special.
*

Saturday was my birthday. I’m four years away from one of the Big 0 birthdays, and feeling the pinch to get on with things undone. To move into my Ideal Life. Because I changed as I’ve gotten older, and want to slow down, take life easier, let go of the go-go and guilt. The thing is I’ve been telling the story of my life for a long time a certain way. Fitting it to meet standards for outcomes or expectations. Face-to-face trusts. Business trusts. None a lie or fabricated, but I feel fractured. I’m an artist archetype. A natural empath, sensitive to energies, noise, and non-verbals. Everything else you see I taught myself or learned out of necessity. And now, when I want to choose the story I tell, I have this urge to tell you the stuff I don’t typically share. Say, I get it.

Last weekend I flew coast to coast for a three-day seminar experience about online business. My trip prompted by a strong intuitive hit as I watched yet another webinar. It made no sense if you balanced costs with what might be called realities. Right off the bat I stretched to show up. It called for business casual. I’m sitting in my jammies as I write this now! I let go, assembled outfits from my closet I liked, felt put together in. Found the perfect designer jacket with distinctive, artsy lines in the perfect color, exactly Me, at the consignment store. By the time I took off, I held my original intention of clarifying my niche and market lightly. A new one received the day before from my medium-psychic hair stylist (go figure, right?). Listen, he said, repeating the word twice more. Listen. And I did.

I did not volunteer for laser coaching tho I wanted it badly, or raise my hand when shares from the group were solicited. I went second when we pared off. Stepped to first only when four of us sat, others hesitating as the clock ticked. I listened to feedback, did what I do well, saw patterns. Style, my smile across the room, you belong with professionals. Asked why when I got a generic ‘you’re fun’ from someone I hadn’t met before. Understood I stood out, was seen, and it was okay. Realized I no longer want words like amazing, great, awesome, smart. Tell me how or why you think it. Give me something to hold on to. Saying my words speak to you counts. So does saying I’m a blessing.

I’ve been taking inventory since I returned. Two days ago I wondered what it would feel like to come out, tell you all the things I’ve experienced that make me a good writer. That prompted high-powered New York editor Marjorie Braman to say with her rejection that I have “a gift with character,” continue with it’s “something I’ve always thought took true talent because it’s not easily learned. I felt that I knew her characters and sympathized with them, even in their less sympathetic moments.” Because what I wish I could’ve told her is that it is learned. From life experience. From listening to your gut. Caring about why people who are different think and feel the way they do. From taking time to listen, see, accept stories without judging.

I’ve felt absolutely naked writing this blog since I started. I didn’t have a clue what I’d say when I sat down that first day last March, a year ago. Others actually told me what I was doing. Creating small journeys, sharing so others see how they might navigate life, too.

I long to take off the rest of my clothes, tell you more after you read this, which is all true. More, like I’ve experienced heartbreaking divorce, am married thirty years now and it’s not easy or perfect. I was a single parent for nine years, moved a lot as a child, was repeatedly abandoned by my mother. That I’ve cared for a younger sibling, and a husband who’d been run down by a car. I’ve been flat broke with no job more than once, and once accepted food stamps. Been cheated on and cheated, lied to and lied, done drugs and drank too much, had a season of promiscuity. I’ve been physically battered for years, carried myself calmly to the edge of suicide, been saved by a mystical experience with Jesus. I’ve had mystical experiences with Buddha and whales, too. I feel the world, see and hear colors, and things some would say are not there. I’ve had a boss from hell, been fired from jobs, disinvited from a group, and was once kicked out of a business I helped build & a partnership I loved. I’ve broken or sprained limbs 11 times, had 5 surgeries, barf everything but advil or tylenol, walk with an artificial joint. I’ve had my house catch on fire. Been stalked. Watched a home remodel go $150,000 over budget, landed us back on our feet afterwards. I walked away from an abusive relationship with no help or assistance, cured myself of an extreme phobia of spiders, faced fears that stole my breath and made my legs cramp for hours. I’ve stopped habits at will when they cost me what I wanted, and at times when I realized I no longer wanted them. I got my bachelor’s degree with a 3.99GPA on the 5th try, and created miracles others said were impossible. Found my passion while sitting two years in a writing group, facing mute response to my words, years after the half dozen psychics I’d seen ALL said I’d write. One seeing me at a golden desk with a golden pen. Another asking for my autograph.

In the end, I’m the heroine of my life. I sat with my father as he died. Held space for my sister when she lost her best friend of a husband. Have coached friends, family, and colleagues. That to the truth I’ve only begun traveling like I want, and could be judged, I believe we’ve probably experienced much the same, even with our different stories.

Now, will you have tea with me?

One day we will see everybody….

Another small journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.

A secret:  It’s weird with no poem here, but it’s weird standing naked, too.
A favorite:  Birthdays

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Posted in art, events, life, spirit, writing | 5 Replies

The Magic Between Writer & Reader

Posted on January 19, 2016 by Heloise Jones
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Morning glories are one of my favorite flowers.
Considered a weed and nuisance for their vining that entwines anything near.
But the flowers! So gloriously rich in color. Such a greeting for a new day.
I like the metaphor, including the vining.
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morning glories*

I’m starting my New Year two weeks late. One might say swirling new energy in a new space is a start, in which case I’m not really late. That late’s in my head, tied with expectations, plans, arbitrary things, because after all, I’m healthy. True. But I feel as if I’ve been away on a far-off journey. And you know how that is. It takes time to regain everyday rhythms, even if you’re glad you’re home. I’m still clearing mental dust on the Heloise Jones 2016 track, which includes you.

Here I am….Piles of orphan stuff tucked away. Pictures on walls are all that’s left to claim home. My ideals are written down. Outline for my first non-fiction book’s printed out. I’m asking who are my readers, who do they think I am, what can I give that anyone wants which also lets me write what I write.

Four days into our new digs, I read a facebook post by author Christine Hale that stuck in my bones: ‘Upside down in yoga class today, looking at my (unlovely) toes and the utterly utilitarian ceiling joists way up above them, I found myself thinking about how much tedious, close-focus work goes into the production of a book. Work that readers never notice, unless you don’t do it well. I’d spent the morning proofing spacing and fonts in the publisher’s galley of my memoir. The book deviates in its typography from prose conventions, and getting the typeface and spacing right is about to kill me and the publisher. Upside down, tiring, sweating, but holding the pose, inhabiting its discomfort fully, nothing before me, temporarily, but those toes and those joists, I thought about how you gotta love it: the tedium, the sweat, the fierce quiet satisfaction of a commitment to GETTING IT RIGHT’. . .

Yes! I thought. The tedium of every edit, decision on every word, comma, space. How it sometimes feels like my brain’s melting, and how much I love it. Especially the moment I get it right, knowing there’s no perfection. And yes, I think about writing all the time.

Virginia Wolf wrote, ‘Style is a very simple matter: it is all rhythm. Once you get that, you can’t use the wrong words. But on the other hand here am I <she> sitting after half the morning, crammed with ideas, and visions, and so on, and can’t dislodge them, for lack of the right rhythm…profound, what rhythm is, goes far deeper than words. A sight, an emotion, creates this wave in the mind, long before it makes words to fit it; and in writing…one has to recapture this, and set this working (which has nothing apparently to do with words) and then, as it breaks and tumbles in the mind, it makes words to fit it’. . .

And again I thought Yes!  Rhythm. Exactly. And it transforms into something inside me, and the reader.

After David Bowie died, I read about him. Watched videos. Here he says the work’s not finished or complete until the audience comes to it. And I read this by publishing media specialist Jane Friedman: ‘The real magic of a book happens when an author’s words and a reader’s mind make something new: page as telepathic intermediary. .  . ‘

Yes! Yes! I thought, again. I write not because I must, as many seem to express. Or because I have something to say. Or because a story burns inside. I write because I love the journey, the process, the challenge. The beauty of the moments when I can answer Yes to my abiding question (Am I okay?) in my choice of a word, completion of a sentence, a paragraph, a page. Feeling that rhythm, finally imagining that space between me and reader. What happens when we feel something, think something new. The connection. It starts with me, ends with us. Because we’re always tumbling somewhere into something.

I want to make this year intentional tumbling. Intentional requires conscious awareness. I can do that. I’m a writer who believes in magic, including the magic that happens in that middle space between you and me. Join me.

Where and how do you feel the magic of connection?

Another small journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.
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A secret:  David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Glynn Frye. I remember the moments I ‘met’ each one. Like I remember the moments I heard Kennedy and John Lennon were shot.
A favorite:  Sunshine and big skies.

Photo: Jamie K. Reaser

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Hearing Angel Messengers

Posted on January 12, 2016 by Heloise Jones
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Put on your red shoes and dance the blues.
~ David Bowie (Let’s Dance)

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wings-angelsm

Last week was the first time I didn’t write since I started this blog in March. Endless bending over boxes packing and unpacking, puzzling to fit both in and out, my brain melted in ways deciding words and commas never causes. My bones ached. I sat down last Monday thinking I’d be there a moment, woke two hours later from a dream I still ponder. One where I completely spaced my flight to Santa Fe, so hopped a plane sans bags, clothes, money, anything. Landed with thoughts I’d find my friends. And people familiar to me I’m not sure I know pull up, know me, and my best friend changed her name to Cathy. I woke knowing neither Art nor I will let go our winter clothes because we’ll go back to the mountains, but I wasn’t clear enough to blog.

This week I planned to tell you how I loved my two kitchens in Asheville. The one I designed I worked with granite fabricators cutting counters so the garnet-studded crystal quartz arms splayed from the center, ran diagonally across surfaces. And after four years, this third home in FL, I finally love my kitchen again. We both love it, in fact. Express joyful pleasure twelve times a day. Was gonna tell you how 2016 is the year I reclaim my writer’s life. How once I spent 7 months clearing obligations and commitments to create the life I envisioned full of psychic space, writing, and reading. How I lived it 7 weeks before my husband was run down by a car 48 hours after our return from a research trip in Yosemite for my second novel. How all that space I carved dissolved.

But this morning I learned, long after others knew, that David Bowie died yesterday. And something socked me in the chest when I read it. His passing felt like an embodiment of so much passing these days in the world. I can mark my decades by Bowie, all the way back to the 70s. And  when I read Elizabeth Gilbert’s words, I felt the middle of the earth move…

“For the last 18 months (we learn only today) David Bowie has known that he was dying. He kept that information private, while spending his final months doing what he’d done his whole life — making outrageously original, beautiful, complicated art. He made a gorgeous album. He created a show, playing right now in New York. And then he released his final video just a few days before he died — on his 69th birthday.

‘Look up here,’ he sings, “I’m in heaven.’

Can you imagine, to be making art like this (fearless art that both comforts and challenges) right up to the moment of your death? How do you do that? How do you BE that? To work with your death so imaginatively, in order to perfectly time out the last beats of your life? What a magnificent creature of creation, right to the end.

I am sad today, but mostly I am overwhelmed by awe. This is what it means to be a great artist…Inspiration, to me, is THIS.”

…because the truth is I’m courageous, sometimes bold, but I’ve rejected myself as flawed every time someone’s said I’m weird, different, particular, raised their eyebrow when they said artist. I internalized the blank stares at my Wonder and Awe as evidence I clearly see things with alternative perspectives, ones that exclude me. I interpreted messages of me being too much as meaning not good enough. Because I don’t stand out on the street, have no flag that says I’m artist or out there, I thought it must be about me. With Liz’s words of fearless art timing the beats of one’s life, on the heels of two people saying they missed my blog last week, I finally get I was wrong. I loved Bowie and other originals for courage I thought I’d never have. I listened to others’ voices instead of seeing messenger angels in kindred spirits like Bowie, Yoko, O’Keeffe. Messengers who told me to simply BE, and embrace what the BE of Me is. Now I claim that kind of courage. Claim my assets.
Who’ve been your angel messengers?

And the stars look very different today…
~ David Bowie (Major Tom)
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Another small journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.

A secret:  My Bowie markers were early yrs. – Major Tom, Heroes, Cat People (Putting Out the Fire), China Girl, the film “The Man Who Fell to Earth.”
A Favorite:  Angels. I seem to have one in every room.

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Space, Time, Marriage – A Writer’s Life

Posted on May 19, 2015 by Heloise Jones
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“Space is the twin sister of time. If we have open space then we have open time
to breath, to dream, to dare, to play, to pray to move freely, so freely…”
~ Terry Tempest Williams

ll-ori-and-orion-nebula

Yesterday was the new moon and my 29th wedding anniversary.

Time’s been simmering in the back of my mind. Another play in a familiar game with the Universe. The rules: I hold requisite trust and patience, open to a question I didn’t know I had, pay attention for both question and answer. My reward, the fun and surprise of synchronicity, discovery in chance meetings, written passages, or a TV show. This round’s probably sparked by a mash-up of a recent heavily weighted birthday with new goals that’ll earn me a Wonder Woman suit when achieved. Or. . .perhaps by my thirst for space.

For seventeen years my husband Art and I lived apart. He in big cities for jobs during the week, me in smaller arts oriented enclaves where he joined me on weekends. At first he called 6:30am every day. Then, not. In solitude I learned my rhythms, my preferences, my vast imagination. Enjoyed autonomy in decisions on top of my duties of household finances and maintenance. I worked outside home, worked at home, never felt lonely or bored. After I wrote my first novel, I created a writer’s life. It took seven months to clear my commitments to others. To carry uninterrupted the worlds of my imagination as I fixed food, washed clothes, took walks, did errands, wrote. As I wandered, gazed out windows, listened when stuck. Seven weeks into my new writer’s life a car struck Art as he walked on a sidewalk. Care-taking, advocacy, dealing with insurance companies, lawyers, doctors swallowed me. When he recovered, I traveled, eventually stepped toward what I’d resisted. I left friends and community, relinquished my solitude, moved in full-time with my husband. Soon after, his job ended, throwing us 24/7 together for months on end.

Psychic space to write, viscerally tangible as boulders to me, turned into fluttering birds impossible to catch. I floundered. On my yearly sojourn to Santa Fe, NM, I met Amando Adrian-Lopez, an artist I related to for his work seemingly born of dreams and stories – fantastical mixed media sculptures of angels, allegorical spirits and vignettes, paintings of women with flowers, birds, and spirits clearly inspired by his Mexican Indian heritage. He told me about the novel he’s writing and illustrating. We talked a long time about the process of creating such work. How he needs solitude. How the space he inhabits while alone, the psychic space, allows him to see the visions, hear the voices of the materials he works with. How he’s conflicted because he wants his relationship and it’s so hard to be with his work and give to his mate at the same time. It could’ve been me speaking, especially when he said, “If I’m working, someone walks through the room, says nothing, I still feel him. It interrupts.”

I beat myself up for not finding new ways to my work. I thought about JK Rowling in a tiny apartment with a baby, writing on bar napkins. It didn’t matter I later learned the napkin legend wasn’t true. Because the fact she didn’t clean house, “lived in squalor” (her words) as she wrote was evidence I wasn’t good enough, couldn’t sacrifice enough, was flawed for feeling clutter and crumbs an invasion when my insides scream for quiet space time. Then I learned Dylan Thomas, Roald Dahl, Michael Pollan, Virginia Wolf, George Barnard Shaw all had writing sheds. Samuel Clemens and Neil Gaiman built writing gazebos. Maya Angelou retreated to a favorite hotel room. JK, with her many rooms in mansions, finished Harry’s last book in a hotel suite. And best, a writer friend spends one day and one night a week in a studio apartment without her husband. It’s not just me.

Sometimes a journey leads back to what you know. Two weeks ago Art started a new job. His hours are long for now. I live with those twins Space and Time, again. And it’s still true Art’s added to my life, I’ve added to his, and my best writing occurs, as Henry Miller says, “in the quiet, silent moments.” Open space.

What happens in open space for you?

Another journey in mindfulness. Getting to Wise.
A Writers Life.

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A secret: I always wanted a best friend across the street. Now I want that friend to be a generous good writer.
A favorite: Lift off in a helicopter.

Photo:  LL Ori and Orion Nebula (Quelle: Nasa / ESA / Hubble Hertage Team)

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