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

Not How the Story Ends

Posted on March 1, 2017 by Heloise Jones

At any given moment you have the power to say: “This is not how the story is going to end.” ~ Christine Mason Miller
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I used to post vignettes on Facebook about my encounters with homeless people on the street. Tiny stories about once a month. In St. Petersburg where I lived, I saw them whenever I went downtown, which was often. They hung out at a park in the heart of the city, where all the buses came & went. I carried a wad of one & five dollar bills in a zipper pocket of my purse so I could easily reach when they asked. I’m a bleeding heart, but the thing is, I didn’t mind. They kept me present. Not with comparison of how fortunate I am. I remind myself of that daily. But with a vow I made 20 yrs. earlier to look them in the eyes. To remain aware of the humanity in all people.

This week I unwrapped a paperback copy of Merriam-Webster dictionary from the plastic bag that’s held it two years. There’s a story with this dictionary. About struggle and desire for a story in a man named Elvin that I met on the street. And his request I turned down, never had a chance to fix. A loss that kept me from unwrapping that dictionary for two years.

I’d just made a promise to myself that if anyone said they were hungry, I’d buy them food. And as happens often, the Universe gave me a chance to show I meant it.

I was distracted, intent on my destination. I saw the man approach, noted he looked clean. But it was moments after Elvin said he was hungry and I handed over my usual $2 in response, that I realized what I’d done. I turned, ran a block to catch up. He was turning away from a couple who’d said no. Do you want a sandwich? I said, pointing to the fabulous sandwich shop next to us. His eyes lit up. What kind of sandwich, he asked. Any kind you want, I said. ‘Even turkey? With mayonnaise and cheese?’ he said. I remember my heart breaking a little in thinking mayo & cheese such a treat as he face showed.

He looked at me before he answered whenever the gal asked for specifics – cheese, mayo, grilled, side. When he said he’d take it to go, I asked if he might want to eat it there. Hoped my question told him it was okay. I’d seen homeless chased from the shop, even with money to buy. I waited as he considered, was pleased when he decided to stay. And here’s where the story turns.

I saw him to his table, said I had to go. He thanked me, then, ‘What do you do?’ When he heard I was a writer, he said he wanted to write his mother’s story. ‘She’s the only one I know who’s never been in jail.’ Imagine the volumes in that line. I slid into the chair across from him.

I learned he has brain damage. The side of his head caved in by a hammer. That he got $600 disability, $500 of which went for a small room in a house that’s too far from town (read, where the agencies are). He came to St. Pete ‘cause it was ‘bad news’ in the town where he’d lived. Just grabbed what he could carry, left one day. He had one gray t-shirt. You saved your life, I said. He nodded. We made a date for the next time he’d take the bus to town.

When we met, he showed me the tiny pocket notepad he had for writing. I handed him a bag with a big notebook and package of pens. He eagerly took notes in it as I gave him a small lesson on free writes and prompts to help him get started. And asked intelligent questions about writing. I talked to him about what he wanted with this story, told him I’d help get it published. He declined when I offered a sandwich. We went for a coke down the street instead.

I learned he’d lost his cellphone. That he took the offer of a ride to the beach and while in the water, the guy stole his phone & left him without a ride. ‘It’s my fault,’ he said. ‘I knew better. I just wanted to go to the beach so bad.’ He didn’t utter one bad word about the thief. I told him how much I liked him, and totally meant it. He said he liked me, too. We smiled with our new friendship.

Here’s the thing. Elvin asked for only one thing from me that day besides a coke. A dictionary. I confess at that moment I didn’t know how to keep the relationship between us even. I told him I didn’t have one, but I could give him a copy of a synonym finder I had. He seemed OK. We made another date for the next week.

And I bought a dictionary. I labored over getting the right one. Paperback that he could hold with one hand, since one of his arms didn’t work well after the hammer blow. Big type ‘cause his eyesight’s affected, too. He’d said he wanted a job. I called agencies for how he might find one.

I arrived on the minute of our date, flying in with a prayer I’d not be late. Elvin wasn’t there. I waited, walked the block, went to the park where the buses come & go several times. Sat until a gal from the sandwich shop came out, said ‘my friend’ left right before I arrived. I was distraught. I called his father in that ‘bad news’ town, left a message for him with my phone number. The phone number something I’d withheld “for safety.”

Elvin called me twice after that. The first time he apologized for leaving, asked if I could help him. I told him I didn’t have money to give, but I could drive him to the agencies, drive him home if he came to town. That I’d take him to the best Goodwill, buy him some clothes. He said OK, but he wasn’t there next time, either.

The second time it was a phone message. He was finding another place to live closer to town, he said. He’d be in touch when he settled.

I’ve thought about him ever since. I wanted to know him. I wanted to help him write his mother’s story. Wanted to see it published, like he wanted. In my mind it would be a bestseller. I wanted the chance to be in this beautiful person’s presence.   Because in that brief time we had, he constantly amazed me and made my heart open wider.

And that said, the truth is it was never equal between us. Me, a white woman of privilege. Him a black man with challenges I can never truly know. The distance between us maybe too big for where I was and where he was at the time, despite intentions. I will never know. I left a message for his father only once after that.

I walked the arroyo this past weekend with a friend. I couldn’t help thinking how the water flows like storylines in a book. . .or in a life. Which way do you go?

And how the entire ecosystem of Yellowstone National Park transformed, turned back to health by the re-introduction of wolves, a species once eradicated as a threat. How other species flourished when the wolves came back, and a ravaged river returned to it’s former glory. How our country was replaying this story, but with human beings as the threat.

I unwrapped the dictionary after holding it a hundred times these past two years, unable to pull it out. I think shedding that bag was my declaration. This is not how the story is going to end.

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

Tell me. . .what do you think, how will your stories end?
I’ll tell you a secret. . .I still hope to see Elvin one day, despite now living 1789 miles away.

Another way to change the story.
The Writer’s Block Myth – A Guide to Get Past Stuck &
Experience Lasting Creative Freedome.

Check me out on Facebook 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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Journey of a Million Miles

Posted on January 25, 2017 by Heloise Jones

Yesterday we laid plastic on the dirt floor in the garage of my little home in Santa Fe. Covered it with sheet linoleum & lined the wall with palettes in wait for the movers. The house is a huge step back from what I’ve had the past decades. I refuse to say ‘step down’ when I’m thrilled to have it, but it does feel humbling at times. At other times I think how lucky I am it’s been stripped & painted clean, has wood floors, new tile and sinks, baseboard radiators, a room where I can host writers, a garage, + views of the mountains. And it feels good. A Happy House, as my landlord’s mother used to call it.

A week ago I sat in the sun for 20 min. while the movers loaded the van. I did not plan, strategize, or try to figure a thing out. I didn’t like how they dismantled my very expensive sleep number bed and stuffed it in wardrobes, but it was done. I asked they seal the openings despite their assurance there was no dust in the van.

The day before that I’d had what can only be called a physical breakdown. With packing left to do, I couldn’t get up from the sofa. It was more than fatigue. My body simply couldn’t move. I thought about slaves in the fields, how they must’ve felt this exact way, but they got up, kept moving because their lives depended on it. And I thought about concentration camp inmates. About refugees traveling oceans & long roads across countries. All of them pushing ahead when their bodies say No. I thought of when I rose at 4am, returned home at 11pm while in school so to meet both my scholastic and social activist goals. All of us, lives depending on it. And I couldn’t move. 8pm I recovered, packed ‘til midnight.

We had a last meal in St. Pete at my favorite restaurant (La Vie, Vietnamese fusion.) Thuy, the gorgeous and brilliant owner came by, gave me a hug. “When you come back. . .’ she said. I shook my head No. I’d been a regular at the eatery. One of her first customers when she opened her day spa. She’s opening a third restaurant now. “I wish you were here to still give us love,” she said. I got love back is what I told her. Then I left Florida.

Florida seemed to cling tight as we drove out. We crept in congestion, a 30 min. drive taking 1.25 hr. Then again for miles on a crowded road accommodating a closed highway’s traffic. I thought about a gal’s exclamation how sad I was leaving. ‘Took us 20 yrs. to get here,’ she said, ‘We love it. We’re not leaving.’

All of us have a place (or places) that zing us, whether it’s the road or a spot on the map. I know when it’s time to leave a place because I don’t notice the beauty of it anymore. I felt an energetic pop when we crossed the border line.

Art drove me to Santa Fe. The few times I took the wheel, I didn’t last much more than 2 hrs. I’ve driven coast to coast alone, twice. Driven alone for days across the west and up the coast of California more than once. They were adventures. This wasn’t. This was a run for my life. And I couldn’t have done it alone as I’d planned. Art saved me is the way I see it. ‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘I can drive.’

One of the most stunning features of a winter drive across country is the silhouettes of trees. They look like people – tribes, soldiers, women, men, all sorts. With personalities. Their branches thick, thin, twisted, gnarled, stretching, swooping. Sometimes so very graceful, sometimes angular like an abstract modern dancer, sometimes straight & purposeful. Several mornings we headed out in fog. The trees particularly gorgeous shrouded in milky soup, green grass or black fields at their feet. I thought if ever I was a photographer, I’d travel and take pictures of trees in winter. I never got a good picture.

I saw the most supernaturally bright green grass in Mississippi. Field upon field of it. Carpets that sometimes had cows. Fog and gray winter trees making it more starkly vibrant. Mississippi also has lots of big crosses.

Mobile, Alabama felt like a city from a Philip K. Dick novel. Especially in the tunnel that drops steeply down under the very wide Mobile River. Like being inside a giant worm in that tunnel. I’d like to go back.

The stretch Denton to Amarillo, Texas on hwy 287 is 300+ miles of peace. Flat, quiet, achingly beautiful. Small towns that seem to be going to ghost every once in a while. In Childress we stopped at a locally owned quick stop. The kind with paper boats of crusty fried chicken pieces, long fat greasy hotdogs on a stick, and fried Mexican snacks in a glass case. Muddy trucks in the parking lot and women with small kids in tow. The bathroom’s rough, Art said. I’ve been in bad ones, just let there be toilet paper, I thought.

But it was sparkly squeaky clean! So clean that a clean paper towel on the floor looked like a desecration. I grabbed another towel to lift it to the trash can. When I came out Art was contemplating what to get from the case. ‘That was the cleanest bathroom. I really appreciate that,’ I told the man at the counter. He beamed, pointed to a young gal behind him. ‘Thank You!’ she said. ‘I work on that every day.’ So much pride. I told her if we win the lottery, I’m coming back to share it with her. And I meant it. As we drove off, I kept thinking how my best friend in high school lived in Childress the last time I talked to her.

I learned there really was/is a falls on the Wichita River. Was, as in the natural falls washed out in a flood in the 1800s. Is, as in the falls were reconstructed further up the river, abeit with pristine landscaping unlike anything that would’ve been there before. I wanted to see those falls. A weak attempt to recover some adventure. But we drove on after circling the pot-holed road in the park where they are. We’d missed the tiny print on the phone that said we had to walk a mile in, and Santa Fe was one night away.

I’ll leave you with magic. I got an email from a writer I met in Canada last fall. He has lots of personal cache to market his historical novel beyond Cape Cod where he lives. He didn’t ask, but I spent time giving him tips & illuminating his options. I wanted him to succeed. He has a vision and a passion. His email blew me away:

I have been re-working my second novel, another work of historical fiction set on Cape Cod. I have been going back and forth on which point of view of use. . .Then last night I had a dream in which a guy who I have never seen before came up to me and told me, ‘Ask Heloise.’ That was it: just a guy walking up and giving me that advice, but I took it as a nudge to get in touch with you and get your advice on this point of view question!

A guy he didn’t know in his dream sent him to me. This is the work that I love. And someone in dreamtime help spread the message.

And this. . .

Second day of the drive, feeling really blue and wanted something to help me feel better, I immediately pulled up behind this van. I followed that happy face for miles, didn’t pass on purpose. You can’t see it well, but in the window there’s a little plush happy face with a cowboy hat cocked on its ‘head.’ It constantly rocked back & forth. I said Thank You when I finally passed, not feeling blue anymore.

A week ago was a million years of a journey to here. I’m starting a new & different life. My husband will go to NC for work. It’s good, but sad. My book’s out March 14, day before the Ides of March. I made video about it. My first one. I’m told there will be more. It’s a marathon, not a sprint, I’m told. Same with life, isn’t it?

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

Tell me. . .what journeys have you taken lately?
I’ll tell you a secret. . .a million miles may start with the first step, but we never make it alone.

Thanks, Art.

The Whole of Me, Willin’

Posted on January 3, 2017 by Heloise Jones

there are pieces of me
that stand on mountains
that sparkle
in tide pools
that contemplate
in deserts
that glisten
in city lights
but the whole of me
lies everywhere
and nowhere
at once
~ Rima Z. Kharuf

Day Three. New Year. I missed its turning. 12:09 when I glanced up and thought, Oh, my goodness. I missed the magic moment 2016 closed the door and 2017 popped its head in. I was in the midst of editing my book, knew I’d soon stop and move upstairs, pack a box for my move across country in two weeks, put my head down around 2am. Deadlines on top one another that make me feel like that 70s Little Feat song, Willin,’. . .been warped by the rain, driven by the snow. . .kicked by the wind. . .Had my head stoved in, but I’m still on my feet and I’m still, willin.‘ Metaphorically feeling it, of course, but it’s made me a bit edgy at times.

Tuesday morning now, though, and time to assess what else has been happening inside me while I was in the midst of living my life. The good and best (meaning most magical) stuff is not always what we remember. Our experience not confined to what we remember, either. If we don’t let it be. What I remember about the past week is sitting in front of the computer, squinting down at the 14” screen, editing my manuscript in the way I do with each word and syllable weighed not just for what it says or how correctly I say it, but the way it feels, the rhythm and ring. And how I’d look up at dusk, think I haven’t been outside today. It was my body feeling those lines by Little Feat. In looking back, I see it was not me ‘thinking’ those lines.

I’ve been thinking about the 4-day drive to my place on the planet, Santa Fe. A longing for belonging answered. Been wiggling my thoughts to adventure in that drive, like it used to feel when I was younger, versus the tired and pain it seems long drives leave me with now. And it was a picture by a friend following Jack Kerouac’s ‘On the Road’ path (a longtime dream of hers) that sparked the Little Feat song ringing in my head. A shot of a dusty looking place. Route 66 road sign, two low-slung buildings, and a large faded, beat by the elements sign that says ‘Tucumcari TRADING POST.’ The song started like it always does whenever I see Tucumcari or Tahachapi. I’d never heard of those places when I first heard it. I was young, had traveled little. But the poetry of the names, how they rolled off my tongue, made an impression. I arrived in both by accident.

I was driving coast to coast, Durham, NC to San Francisco, to go to hypnosis school. I drove 10 hr. days then. Left time for exploration if something unexpected showed up. Loretta Lynn’s homeplace. The Indian pottery factory an hour off the road where dozens sat at long tables, painted whatever story they wanted in symbols on little factory pots. The legend for the symbols on the wall. And one very early morning I sat eating breakfast in an independent truck stop in Tucumcari that was clearly a favorite by locals and truckers both. It may sound silly, but I felt a wide-eyed wonder to be in that place from the song. A desert place so different from its name like a tropical bird’s.

And Tahachapi – I was headed out of California. The sun had set late but I chose to drive thru the last ‘big’ town at dusk. I remember looking at the lights in my rearview mirror as the road headed up a mountain, thinking perhaps I should turn around. But I’m the kind of road-tripper who follows the highways, open to what shows up, so I was unaware there wasn’t much ahead for hours. Pitch black, I’m driving the mountain. Then I saw the sign, Tahachapi. That same little thrill I’d had in Tucumcari several years earlier tickled my chest.

I stopped in a small strip of a motel. The next morning I learned it was wildflower season. I drove out to find the hillsides covered in blooms that I saw on the postcards in the office. And though I didn’t see blankets of flowers, I stood above a huge curve of train track, the one spot in the country where you can see the end and beginning of a long train at once. I felt lucky when a train came, circled that curve.

So, this week’s really been about poetry. It’s been as Rima Kharuf writes: the whole of me lies everywhere and nowhere at once. I felt beat by the elements of life and at the same time, been reminded of the thrilling adventure and discovery in life. And in the moment when I felt like my house was on fire, a friend offering badly needed help and then making a different choice, another friend showing up with gifts of connection and words I needed to hear, the most wonderful thing happened. As I sat at the computer one afternoon, I noticed I was smiling. Not at something I read or saw. Not for anything I thought about. Just because. . .well, because I was smiling. And I noticed it, and thought what a very good thing.

“None of us are getting out of here alive, so please stop treating yourself like an after thought. Eat the delicious food. Walk in the sunshine. Jump in the ocean. Say the truth that you’re carrying in your heart like hidden treasure. Be silly. Be kind. Be weird. There’s no time for anything else.”
~ Christopher Walken, actor and soul extraordinaire

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

Tell me. . .what poetry do you see in your life?
I’ll tell you a secret. . .when ‘she’ said I’m too sensitive to my environment, I replied I’m sensitive, not too sensitive. That was a first.

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