Excitement City with an Oops. And Free Download!

Posted on March 9, 2017 by Heloise Jones

Isn’t it hard to let things go? Well I let my “free download link” go last night and I had the dates for the FREE download of my new book wrong, in 2 places! I was a day early. Excitement City, even with an Oops, tho.

Free download is Saturday, Sunday, and Monday on Amazon.

And in case you missed it. . .here’s my beautiful note and the link!

Hi! It’s time, it’s time! My book’s coming out March 14th!
Could you do me a favor? I have the book downloadable for free on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday of this week (Kindle and to your computer). Could you download it on one of those days?

The book, The Writer’s Block Myth, is something I’m so excited about. Every day I hear, read, or experience discussions that talk about being “blocked” in writing. Sometimes it stops individuals from even starting! Isn’t it hard to get to that anticipation place and then get stymied by your own thinking?

I’ve got your process and you’re going to truly value that you’re not alone on this journey. The Writer’s Block Myth will free you from so much more than your perceived block in writing.

C’mon, here’s your free ticket to learn! Let’s talk about writing and if you order on Saturday, Sunday, or Monday you can receive it absolutely FREE.

The book is intended to support writers and creatives to get past stuck, complete their goals, and experience lasting creative freedom whatever life looks like in the ‘real’ world.

Please, let’s get the word out, for any writer or want to be writer that this week the book is even free! I’d so appreciate your sharing and if you truly love the book, and the work within it, would you consider rating it on Amazon?

This is an exciting tool and I hope one you keep in your tool shelf of good things to read and share!

Warmly,
Heloise Jones

My Three Poems

Posted on February 15, 2017 by Heloise Jones

‘If you were to write 3 poems this week, what would be their titles?’
~ Maya Rachel Stein, poet and creative adventuress

My three:
– Saying Thank You 100 times as if It’s the Name of God
– What Space Looks Like
– We Don’t Have All the Time in the World

Maya and I are friends. We met nearly a decade ago, tho it seems weird to think it’s been so long because we both confess feeling a special bond despite seeing each other only twice. I discovered her poetry through a mutual friend. When I heard she was touring the country to meet some of the 600 people who subscribed for her 10-line Tuesdays (poems in our inbox!), was holding writing workshops in living rooms, that Charlotte was on her list of stops, I called her up. ‘Come to Asheville, stay with me,’ I said. ‘Asheville loves poets.’ I still have friends I made in my living room that day. Peeps I didn’t know who drove hours to sit with us. And Maya. Watching her adventures putting poetry and creative arts into the world, and her very special relationship with Amy. I couldn’t attend their wedding, but as I said in the sentiments I sent, I know there’s fun where-ever they are.

Maya and me. We share belief in the power of words and art. There are a dozen Thank You’s I have for Maya.

Yesterday was Valentine’s Day. I found a poem I wrote for my husband Art on our 24th Valentine’s together. I don’t think I ever gave it to him. Yesterday was our 31st. In the beginning he gave me a dozen red roses. Always. Until I fell in love with the raucous color and dance of cut flower bouquets. Something only rare florists master. We may have gone out to dinner, too. Until I decided the crowds & bad food of restaurant rush weren’t worth the money, either. There were cards and candy, all the other ways Valentine’s defined for couples. In that poem, I snuck from bed, placed foil-wrapped lips on a stick in his toothbrush holder with my heart filled with tenderness. Today, him in NC, me happy here in Santa Fe, I think that’s what Valentine’s really about. Tender hearts. For a loved one, for friends, family, humanity, the planet, for ourselves.

There are a thousand Thank You’s for those 31 yrs. with Art. I put one on the Acknowledgement page of my book:

I wish to thank my husband Art for the space and his willingness to see me through
years of creative pursuits. His insights during the times I needed a different perspective
made me a better writer, coach, and person.

I have multitudes more for tender hearts, our beautiful universe, and moments on this earth.

At the post office they always ask, ‘Need any stamps?’ My usual response is I’ve got plenty. Then I saw Wonder Woman. Of course I bought a sheet. I heard other women bought sheets when they didn’t need more stamps, too. An artist-healer friend in New Zealand wrote, asked for a note with the stamp. It’s been a very tough year or two, she said. ‘I’m sending you four, one of each image,’ I told her. ‘You’ll do something creative with them, and place it where you’re reminded what a Wonder Woman you indeed are.’ In the bigger sense, I believe Wonder Woman is women claiming the space we’ve always held.

I could talk for years about space. My Thanks to Art in my book mentions it – the space to create. Now, the space of solitude to flow with my life rhythms, commune uninterrupted with my imagination. The space out my windows to far horizons and mountains that always imply more on the other side. Like the space I used to feel when I looked out on the ocean. ‘What do you see,’ Art used to ask. The world, I told him. It’s the same when I look at those colors in the shot above. Because color in all forms gives us space.

I was in Santa Fe three days when I ignored my ragged face, the 8* weather, and dressed to go out for a Women2Women lunch. The agenda – introduce ourselves & hand out cards, have good food & good conversations, and hear someone in the community speak. I (very) briefly connected with a gal there. We met for brunch two weeks later. ‘Where do you live,’ she said. I told her the neighborhood. Then. . . which street? what number? Turns out she’s a neighbor and one of her best friends is my landlady. Exactly how I fly in Santa Fe, with magic. But honestly, we really don’t have all the time in the world. We gotta show up, say our Thanks, and find the space between us.

Because Life can shift in a heartbeat. Less that that, a breath. To the good, and not so good. I know because I’ve been there. . .chance meetings, a poem accepted, house on fire, husband run down by a car. Yesterday was a hard day. A brief, gentle dressing down for doing something that comes natural to me. A reminder the clock’s ticking on something very important to me. At the end of the day I felt myself in loosely-glued pieces with thoughts of failure, while every bit of me wanted space to give what I do well: support empowering writers & creatives to move forward, live their best creative life. Because I think they hold our Voice when we can’t speak, and Vision when it’s hard to see. Our conscience when we get snarled and tied up. But at the end of the day, all I could think was author Mary Anne Radmacher’s famous words: “Courage does not always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I will try again tomorrow.’ ”

I had Thanks on my lips and a deep belief in restored space on the morrow when I went to bed, even knowing we don’t have all the time in the world. Despite feeling small. Because what I know is I’ve cracked the code to help people live their best creative life and that’s something grand. Sometimes it’s just hard doing for ourselves what we do for others.

Another Small Journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.

Tell me. . .what would the titles of your three poems be?
I’ll tell you a secret. . .we really don’t have all the time in the world.

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Using What I Have

Posted on February 8, 2017 by Heloise Jones

“The artist, and particularly the poet, is always an anarchist in the best sense of the word.
He must heed only the call that arises within him from three strong voices:
the voice of death, with all its foreboding, the voice of love and the voice of art.”
~ Federico García Lorca
(poet, playwright, & theatre director executed by Franco).
*

I typically scan facebook for the patterns in what’s been up for me. The sum today is I slept many hours last night, starting 8pm on the sofa, moving to bed at 11:30, & with waking only once, rising late @ 7am. After weeks of scant sleep + insomnia the night before from which I rose, pulled out my courage & contacted folks for book reviews, and others with a dissatisfaction. My publisher told me launching a book is a marathon, not a sprint. But the fact is I’m sprinting to catch up from the late start in the process, and the move to Santa Fe, creating a functioning home with box-lined walls, plastic bins at the ready in the garage for re-packaging from the cardboard mousies love. Sprinting to regain a rhythm in my life.

The other day I went to a movie for the first time in a year. As I pulled from my driveway, I saw clear through the picture window of my little home to the light & view out the kitchen window at the back of the house. It rather stunned me. I thought, this is why I’m here. To do my work with a sense of space and expansiveness outside me and inside me. This does not require a sprint.

By my front door is a ceramic vase with two delicate oriental cranes on it. I bought it in Jacksonville. It’s not my style and made no sense to get it then, nor any time I’ve looked at it in the ensuing 4 years. But I was, and still am, completely drawn to it. Then this. . .

For a year before I returned to Santa Fe, I subscribed to New Mexico magazine. I’ve moved magazines before. They’re heavy & never worth the cost. But the little voice said ‘throw this one in the box.’ Sandhill cranes and the caption ‘Flocking to NM’ on the cover. I flipped through it the morning I pulled it from the box. Read ‘Preparing for Liftoff’ + an 8-pg. spread on writers and indy bookstores. This note stuck out: “. . .the National Endowment for the Humanities has ranked New Mexico first in the nation for the number of working writers per captia.” Those unseen guides, talking to me even in Jax.

A family member wrote on fb I should quit sharing my thoughts about the world and focus on selling my book. (I’m really nice in my posts, focusing on love of the planet & humanity, empowerment) Two people responded. One said she vehemently disagrees. ‘Your influence as a writer is far greater than any of us less articulate folks. Please use it as your conscience dictates.’ Another said, ‘Yes!!! Love your voice and the strength that fuels it.”

I’ve always been an artist, creativity at the heart of every job I’ve had. I asked my mother when she was dying what she remembered I loved to do most when I was a kid. ‘Draw,’ she said. ‘From the time you could hold a pencil.’ At eight, I made folders out of 2 sheets of notebook paper, the front sheet folded down. forming a flap. The sides taped or stapled. I colored pictures with themes on the front – holidays, myths, animals. I wrote stories & drew pictures to fit the themes. My first experience of writer’s block was in 3rd grade. I sat at a brown lunch table composing a poem, prompted by one I saw in a school newsletter. I thought a poem something I could do. But young as I was, I questioned myself, never submitted it. The next year I wrote stories for a book I planned, complete with Table of Contents. At 18, tho, I turned in a blank sheet of paper to my college professor every Friday in response to our single assignment for the day, Write. That failure kept me from having the GPA to continue school. Took 5 tries to get my degree and find my worldly heart. Two while in an abusive marriage. Five. Persistence.

For months I’ve come out with aspects of my past that I’d kept to myself because, well, I felt ashamed about some of it. + I didn’t want to be identified with stuff that happened years and decades ago. . .when I was a diff woman. But it’s all part of my history that informs my understanding of human-Being. Not my identity, but parts of me that’s shared with others who are battered, broke, stalked, on food stamps, dismissed, have homes that burn, lost children, husbands run down by cars, businesses lost, little income for months on end. Who’ve lived in places very different than they’ve known. Have been thought weird or different. All part of human-Being that when turned into something besides fear, opens to empathy.

I’ve not shared my book on facebook the past few days. I’ve shared this:

Let’s support writers this week. I’m all about it. Because words have power.
Writers in other countries have been executed for that power.

Nearly 20 yrs. ago I joined a circle of writers to regain a Voice I’d lost. Writing and all things authorly have been my passion since. I’ve known I was a writer thru trauma, move after move, & distractions. I know the power of the written word for my insides and our outsides. I know the ways we get waylaid. It’s why I use my Voice now. We use what we have.

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

What empowers you?
I’ll tell you a secret: Today I say action with heart.

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I work with people who have a vision & desire to write.
Sound like you? Go Here.

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Get. It. Here.

Face to the World

Posted on February 1, 2017 by Heloise Jones

You do not have to be good. 
You do not have to walk on your knees
 for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.  . .
~ Mary Oliver (Wild Geese)
*

I was at my first writing retreat 14 yrs. ago when I first heard the poem Wild Geese by Mary Oliver. It resonated with me because for yeeears I’d walked on my knees for hundreds of miles thru deserts, repenting. My imagination, always wild and vivid, could not lift me from my knees, could not tell me I was okay as I am, that the mistakes I’d made were simply that, mistakes. Something happened last night, tho. I read this poem and a different line stood out, ran true in my soul.

A line that reads “announcing your place in the family of things.” This was a revelation of monumental proportions for me. I sat for a moment, jaw dropped, realizing I’d finally made that hard journey. Shed an old story and skin.

Today the pre-launch of my book went LIVE. The big work was writing a concise, authentic summary of who I am. Not one about the gal who prefers tea to coffee, walking to running, culture to shopping, sunrises to sunsets, quiet to loud. Not the gal who loves nature in explicable ways, and all things creative. Not the one who thrives on beauty and space. But the gal who has the experience and authority to say listen, I may have something you want, even if you’re not a writer.

Who’s still learning. Who gets things done even if she often flies in on the cusp of deadlines. Who put on make-up for the first time in 20 yrs., pieced together a throw blanket and picture in a rented condo, watched the sun as it shifted, and placed blinding light in her face to create a 2 min. video. After trying for 12 hours, the first time in the midst of packed boxes.

Who, instead of having the sojourn she usually has in Santa Fe each fall, wrote a book and hosted a coach & author in private retreat. The author, feeling whole when she left, finished her memoir. And sent this to her huge list of peeps when it was over:

Heloise Jones helped with some of the editing on my book! She truly knows her stuff. She gets down to it, finds the holes and insights to make your story its best. There were many times in our editing process together in which she picked up on a simple line, stopped me and said, “right there, there is the spine of your story.” Then she would crack it all open and give me ideas to bring it home. She really has genius at insight and is fun to work with.

That blew me away.

And biggest of all in the most personal way, the gal who decided to have the courage and kindness to herself & her husband to move across country to live in her Soul Home, Santa Fe, alone.

I will create and give my best self & offers to the world. I’m the gal who didn’t feel she was okay or enough as she is, and tried so hard for years to earn my breath. But I woke the other day in a house smaller than I’ve lived in for decades, without a dishwasher that I’ll miss, happy for way more than a moment.

I use the words love, magic, and angels a lot for a reason. They sustain me and brought me here.

Thanks for being there. Now, let’s spread the word. Whatta ya say? Give a gift to yourself, or someone you know. It’s about our best creative lives!

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

Tell me. . .what sustains you?
I’ll tell you a secret. . .I always wanted to say I love my life. I’m almost there.

That pic above is the view from my kitchen window. West, at sunrise, when Santa Fe colors rise up from the horizon. Can you see the snow-called mountains in the distance?

*
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Another Day. Another Chance to Smile

Posted on November 1, 2016 by Heloise Jones

From the sofa, the tree above looks so stunningly graphic against the big sky.

*
Every day I see or hear something that more or less kills me with delight.
~ Mary Oliver (from the poem Mindful)

The days are intense and long, and short, all at the same time. I love the bubble of writerly process I’ve been in. Love looking out my window at that tree and cross on the hill, seeing the light come and go. I love the cottonwoods blazed gold here and there, often in lines marking the water traces. The color of fall in northern New Mexico stretching across the landscape to the far horizon I see from my condo. But it’s been intense and long, and short, all at the same time. Not a time like any other I’ve had in Santa Fe.

A writer just left that I hosted and coached for four days – listening and hearing between the lines, following patterns to guide her to deep dives into subtexts in her work. It took a bit to come out of her Writer’s Dream. I fell right into hours on my book.

I’m an old fashioned writer. Will never be one to write a book in a weekend, which seems to be the new fad. I weave words, ideas, and stories in my mind that go down on the page the old fashioned way. With time and breath. Then edit multiple times the old fashioned way with attention to craft, form, and saying it well. What’s different is I’m writing a nonfiction book, and I’m not composing the first draft with pen & paper as I do fiction and poetry. I compose straight on the screen. My notebook replaced by lined pads and printed pages filled with notes from interviews, mapping, points to remember. The writing feels good and not so good. As whenever I’m writing something intentional, engaged in a dance with creativity in the process. Whatever I write is always a tad bigger than I am. And sometimes that stretch feels hard to do. It consumes me like a lover.

I tell authors not to focus on the product or goal, stay centered in the process. Good advice for Life, this presence. But, I confess it’s difficult following my own advice right now. I want it finished, sent to the publisher for what’s next. Want off the screen. I long to walk under the blue sky I see out the windows. Long to walk in the sunlight turned golden by the last canopy of fall cottonwoods. Even tho the work is good and I love it.

I’m living on a hill three blocks from the Santa Fe Plaza for the next month. The incline’s fairly steep. Going down’s magical as I see the western horizon, those golden cottonwoods stretched all the way there. Coming up is a challenge. I’ve learned to look down, focus on my breath as I climb. That I arrive quickly, without needing breaks, albeit winded. That somehow seeing that incline, the distance yet to go, tires me. The other day I put my bag on a low adobe wall at the bottom, took off my overshirt, prepared for the hike. A young man walked toward me. I noted his dirty stuffed backpack, the tattoos on his face, his clothes old but with no tatters. I suspected him one of the homeless I pass gathered in threes and fours. Bits of tales about their encounters on the street caught, but I’ve never been approached for money. So unlike the ragged loners I see in St. Pete.

I confess I immediately wished this guy would not ask for money. That I could just greet him like any other person on the street, and look into his eyes, not see desperation. I wished this as I unzipped my purse, ready to reach for the bills I carry for asks.

He slowed slightly, said Hi as he passed. I looked into his face, replied, ‘Hi. How ya doing?’ He hesitated just a beat, then picked up his pace. ‘I’m dong good,’ he said. ‘Another day, another chance to smile.’

I felt his words. Yes. Right! And we held each other’s eyes for a moment as he walked on. I watched him walk down the block.

Sunday a little boy in Taiwan who is the brightest little magical being, ever, turned 7.

Made me happy all day just thinking about him. Another day. Another chance to smile.

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

Tell me. . .what made you smile today.
I’ll tell you a secret. . .I’m still really happy, and feeling lucky.

*
A book for people living in the real world.

The Writer’s Block Myth –
A Guide to Get Past Stuck & Experience Lasting Creative Freedom

Get it here

Free download is Saturday, Sunday, and Monday on Amazon.

The Writer’s Block Myth – A Guide to Get Past Stuck & Experience Lasting Creative Freedom

The Writer’s Block Myth –
A Guide to Get Past Stuck & Experience Lasting Creative Freedom