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There is no right way. Everyone is different.

Michael Anderle

I’ve written about comparison and how dangerous comparisonitis can be before. However, I tend to look at comparison from the bottom up, from the perspectives of those who compare themselves to writers who are further ahead in their careers.

Here, I always stress the importance of being realistic, of knowing where you are right now, and how that impacts what you can and cannot do today.

I never really talked about the other side of the coin, about how those we look up to and in whose footsteps we want to follow compare ourselves to us. Do they have a full grasp of where they are right now compared to where they’ve been when telling us how it’s done? Are they aware of the privilege that comes with being further ahead when talking about writing or publishing to a group of people desperate to get to that place too?Read More →

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You can choose courage or you can choose comfort. You cannot have both.

Brené Brown

For the past two and a half years, I’ve been joking that I haven’t seen my comfort zone since late 2017.

It’s not actually a joke, of course. I have been pushing myself beyond what I thought myself capable of and I’m not even close to being done.

During the last eighteen months alone, I quit my teaching job to start editing and coaching full time, I moved to Cyprus, I published my first co-written lesbian romance, I published my first and many other nonfiction books, and that’s just the business and writing part of my life.

Of course, these were all calculated risks, and some were bigger than others. You really don’t have to jump without a safety net. Falling flat on your face and bruising your ego is embarrassing enough as it is. Besides, there’s no guarantee a crazy leap will bring in a bigger reward. It might, but it might also end in a trip to the ER.Read More →

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Feeling guilt or even shame around our creativity is nothing new…

…but I see more people dealing with it these days.

After all, aren’t we all supposed to be locked inside our homes waiting for this to pass?

Not-Enoughness

To start, that’s obviously not the case. We’re not all locked inside just waiting about for better days to come.

Some of us—those we’ve been calling the frontliners—work more than ever, under more strenuous circumstances than ever.

Some of us locked inside our homes are still working as well, and a few of those might even be working harder because their line of profession is asking that of them right now.

Some of us have kids who they are supposed to homeschool.

Some of us have all of the above and then some.

Yes, there are people waiting out this pandemic who are bored out of their minds, but, for a lot of people, life as they knew it kind of went on or got harder.

And yet we’re all being shamed and guilted in not feeling enough, in not taking this ‘opportunity’ to finally learn that language, finish that book, become fit (what? If there’s one thing I’m not becoming these days, it’s fit).Read More →

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When your inner critique makes all the sense…

…how do you keep going?

This past month, I’ve been working on my next tarot challenge—Speak Your Truth. As I was pondering the questions, the need to shake things up a bit during this challenge came over me. Great, right? I love it when inspiration suddenly strikes.

Unfortunately, those are also the moments that—for me at least—that nastly little voice inside my head pipes up and desperately tries to waylay whatever new idea is now buzzing in my brain.

As soon as my curiosity went ‘Yes, gut, let’s shake things up indeed!’, the following thoughts tried to take hostage of my mind, in this order:Read More →

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Failure is the mother of success, someone once said.

Yes, I’m all for giving credit where credit is due, but it looks like too many people have said it. And they’re all right. Failure is the mother of success.

There is no creative process without failure. You can’t innovate without making mistakes. It’s all trial and error, and hoping something eventually sticks.

But that’s not really how we do things these days, do we?Read More →