Aristotle’s view of the Sophists was one that I feel like applying to the news these days. He believed the Sophists were more interested in winning over their audience to their side of a topic using parlor-trick style persuasive techniques, instead of basing their arguments on the truth.

However, as I write this, the question arises: What is the truth? If I subscribe to Aristotle’s theory or even refer back to the first paragraph here, I have to carefully examine what we mean by truth. Truth is based upon perception. If that is difficult to swallow, watch one of the many True Crime shows in which the police detectives interview a perpetrator who realizes he/she has been caught and hear their rationalization of their actions. They believe they were justified. It is their perception of the truth.

The truth of one person from one socioeconomic class will be quite different from the truth of someone in a different socioeconomic class. For example, I used to work for a woman who would complain about people who worked for her who were in a lower socioeconomic class and she would express that they didn’t seem to have enough money for bills, but they had enough money for a cell phone. To her, it seemed they weren’t spending their money wisely, but to those people, that phone may have meant something important. Maybe it was their way of feeling like they actually belonged somewhere or they may have had family they were supporting and they needed to be able to communicate. For that matter, we could profer the question: Why weren’t they making enough money to pay their bills and have a cell phone? The perceptions are varied and truth is nebulous.

Morals are another nebulous factor when considering truth. One person’s morals will be quite different from another. We see evidence of that everywhere. Someone trying to survive stealing money from a business or someone with more money may rationalize their theft as necessary to their survival and it isn’t right for someone to have so much and others so little. Perception.

Our morals and our truths are based in our belief systems. We tend to gravitate toward groups that share these same belief systems. When our belief systems are threatened, or we believe they are, we become fearful. Fear can overtake us and narrow our perceptions even more. We may call for justice in a situation, but once again, our idea of justice is only one perception. One person’s justice is another person’s murder.

I am currently reading Amy Chua’s book, Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations. I highly recommend it as a path to better understand why things are occurring as they are in our country. We have many groups that qualify as tribes, and many of these tribes are driven by hate.

Many posts and news stories dicuss the futility of hate. I agree that hate is not an answer, but I don’t think calling groups out for hate is going to work either. That only adds to the frustration and pours gasoline on the flames. With the callout, the group feels judged and no one enjoys feeling judged, so situation exacerbated.

The tenants of each group’s moral standards are varied, many of which are based in religion. There are so many different religions and probably just as many groups against religion. We have ethnic groups, racial groups, socioeconomic groups and the list goes on with some categories overlapping.

The one group that includes all others is the group we all belong to: humanity. We are all humans. If we are to find our way, I submit that everyone needs to accept the fact that we all share this planet, and if we are going to continue to do so without annihilating ourselves, we need to find a common ground to begin the journey of acceptance of those who are different in whatever way, and to undertake discussion and compromise to negotiate a peaceful existence.

If someone holds a different religious belief, or a different idea of gender, or has a different skin color, or a different cultural or religious belief, it doesn’t have to be perceived as an attack on another group or that the other group will cease to exist.

The one thing humanity should unite together against is persecution of any singled out group for any reason. An attack on one group will only propagate attacks on others at different times. It is a vicious cycle.

We are supposed to be evolving. Humans are supposed to be creatures with reasoning brains. Let’s live up to that.

I have mentioned in several of my previous Substack posts  that I teach freshman composition. Through the years, I have often told my students that writers change the world. I told them this to attempt to get them to understand the importance of learning to communicate well, and that the essays they do in our courses are to prepare them for writing more than just essays, and that language is powerful. I have also told them many times that I hope, by the end of the course,  though they may not come to love writing, maybe they will no longer hate it. I believe that has actually happened a few times. 

The examples I mention when I say that writers change the world are usually famous people who have written important things like Robert Woodward and Carl Bernstein who revealed the information behind Watergate, or Rachel Maddow, David Frum, and Christopher Wiley, who have all written about political corruption. I also discuss some important books written about historical atrocities such as the Holocaust by William Styron and Victor Frankl. 

These are obviously significant works, but it occurred to me that I should also mention writers who changed the world another way. 

I should include works that are of no less importance than those mentioned here that elevate the reader, illustrate beauty and joy, books that celebrate and elevate. Writers who produce works that change the world with beauty, beauty created with poetry and prose that lifts the reader into a different dimension are world changers also, maybe even moreso. These types of writers change the world by building an alternate universe a reader can choose to visit through the mastery of language that brings the reader on adventures, fun, joy, happiness, and sadness in exciting locations with characters becoming new friends and heroes, leaving the writer satisfied and smiling or crying at the end. 

These writers, the ones who take me to all kinds of places and show me different cultures, histories, customs, and beliefs are my favorites. Some of these are: Ernest Hemingway, Virginia Woolf, Harper Lee, Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Coyle, J.R.R. Tolkien, Dean Koontz, David Baldacci, Stephen King, Michael Connelly, Steven Pressfield, Anne Lamott, and many, many others. I have a varied interest which stretches across literature, nonfiction, and genre fiction. Writers have changed my own world, as much as they have changed the world we live in. 

I suppose the reason writers love to write is because, deep down, we love to read other writers and visit their worlds. I’ve told many people over the years that I love to read because I can go anywhere, do anything, be anyone, including time travel, so my desire to write emerges from my inner self so that I can aspire to touch other readers as I have been touched. 

Each writer has a unique voice, and all should have the opportunity to be heard. Despite the negative things I have read about the publishing world and how hard it is to sign with a big five publisher, how hard it is to make a bestseller list, how hard it is to market and sell books, and how hard it is to make a living at writing, writers are going to write. That makes me happy because as long as there are books, and as long as I am able, I will read them and let these writers change my world as I attempt to do the same for others. 

I will also continue to convey my love for reading and writing to my students with the hope that I can prove to them, even if it is only one, that writers change the world and we always need new voices to add perspective to our ever-changing world. After all, art makes life more livable, and writing is art. 

Karen Taylor’s first attempt at changing someone’s world:

Learning to Respect my Strut: My Journey as Woman Warrior

I admit that I, like many other writers, would like to see my books hit the bestseller lists and all of that, but I know the competition is fierce. I also know that a person who is famous, whether or not they can write, will get a book deal from a big publishing company much faster than the average writer. This doesn’t sound fair, but I recently read a book by Karin Gillespie entitled, Pitch Queen, that put things into a new perspective for me.

Though it is farcical, Gillespie’s book held some real truths about literary agents and how books that make it to those bestseller lists don’t always ensure a successful writing career to those lucky ducks who wrote the “bestsellers.” I have read in nonfiction articles some of the same things Gillespie had her characters experience.

The thing that resonated with me the most about her book occurred in a dialogue from a character who was a real book lover, and the way this character described the importance of good books to readers was a beautiful truth. It reminded me of the reason I write. I want to write a good enough story that I can evoke the same sort of feel-good emotions I feel when reading a good tale. This puts everything into perspective.

In addition to Gillespie’s book, I have read several notes on Substack this past week saying the same things about writing for the joy of writing and for that one reader who is waiting to read just what we write. Everything doesn’t have to come down to the bottom line on the spreadsheet to be valuable. We may go our entire lives and only be known by a select few who connected with our writing. That can’t be measured in numbers.

On the other hand, what we do is valuable and should produce a good living. I don’t mean to discount the importance of making money. All I mean to say is this: If we do what we honestly and truly love, write from our hearts, and don’t focus on the competition, we will be happier and I believe the money will arrive while we are enjoying ourselves.

I believe that if we persevere, we will gain the prize, but first, we must name the prize. What do we seek when we prepare our work for publication? What do we wish to achieve? Are we writing for monetary gain first and foremost? I sincerely doubt it, at least for most writers.

The reason we write, I think, can be summed up in the words of Ray Bradbury:

And what, you ask, does writing teach us?

First and foremost, it reminds us that we are alive and that is a gift and a privilege, not a right. We must earn life once it has been awarded us. Life asks for rewards back because it has favored us with animation.

So while our art cannot, as we wish it could, save us from wars, privation, envy, greed, old age, or death, it can revitalize us amidst it all.

Second, writing is survival. Any art, any good work, of course, is that.

Not to write, for many of us, is to die.

Zen in the Art of Writing: Releasing the Creative Genius Within You by Ray Bradbury

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If I wanted to, I could become cynical about all of this because according to CelebrityNetworth.com, Bradbury’s net worth was $30 million. What is even more impressive is he won forty-five awards and nominations. However, if I am truly honest with myself, I will understand that someone who believes that writing is survival has a better chance at achieving these types of accolades than a person who thinks about how difficult it is to become a popular, bestselling writer.

So, whenever I begin to question myself and my purpose, whenever I think about the statistical chances of becoming a famous bestselling writer, I will remember these words from the master, Bradbury, and of course others, and focus on the joy of writing because, really, all of us are only looking for happiness. What better way to achieve it than to enjoy what we do?

Vist my author page on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Karen-Taylor/author/B0C5FP37ZZ?ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

Learning to Respect my Strut

Capturing the In-Between

Unveiling the Secrets

The last few days I’ve been reading a lot of posts on Substack and other media platforms about writers and rejection. Both positive and negative perceptions of the dreaded R-word were represented, and it made me consider the true meaning of the word, rejection. 

The Google dictionary definition: “the dismissing of a proposal, idea, etc.” and “the spurning of a person’s affections. These two definitions seemed to merge as I considered writers and rejection letters/emails. 

Looking at the first definition, it seems we should be able to accept a rejection from a place we submitted without so much despair. After all, it is merely a dismissal of a piece we have written by a target publication and the competition is fierce. However, I think most of us feel more in line with the second part of the definition, as if we were just spurned by a person in whom we had a deep attraction, sort of like in our adolescence when the world revolved around whether or not the target of our affection returned our fond feelings. 

Words have power and the way we interpret words and phrases is affected by the weight assigned to our words. I think Rejection is one word that has gained power over time, especially in the writing world. Language is ever evolving.

I love language and words and the cool way words fit together to make phrases, phrases work together to make sentences, sentences make paragraphs, and so on. It is kind of like putting a puzzle together, trying to find the right pieces that will male a beautiful picture. Maybe this is why writers feel the rejection so deeply. We spend so much time painstakingly placing those puzzle pieces together, first believing two pieces will work, but as they get closer, we see they don’t fit at all. We then go looking for just the right piece that will fit with what we have, and sometimes discard the first piece to come back to later because we have found two pieces that fit together so beautifully we just want to admire our work for a bit. 

Once we get our beautiful puzzle picture put together and sit back and revel in it, we then invite someone we hope will want the picture to come see. We show them the lovely picture, the picture that doesn’t show all of the arduous, yet rewarding hours we have spent on the image, and the person either nods politely and walks away saying something like, “NIce, but I’m not much on landscapes,” or they shake their head and say, “It’s not good enough.” 

This respected person cannot see the blood, sweat, and tears that went into the work. They just know what they like. When this happens we can either accept their evaluation of the perfectly put-together puzzle that was created with such love and effort, or we can look at the puzzle and tell ourselves, “Someone who loves puzzle photos of landscapes would appreciate it. After all, mine has this special feature I added.” We can then keep it in a special place, and invite others to view it because sooner or later, we will find the person who loves the special feature we added.” We can then begin another puzzle. 

The word, rejection, holds a great deal of power, but only if we allow it. The power comes from us and how much self-worth we have. There are published writers whose work doesn’t appeal to me and I’ve read work by unpublished writers that is so good it stops time.  We should never base our self-worth on a rejection letter/email, even if we feel our writing could’ve been better. 

If the writing could be better, we work on the writing and make it better because we wish to produce beautiful works of fiction, nonfiction, etc., but if we know our work is polished and good–and let’s be real, we know–then we move to another publication. Then we begin a new puzzle, or if we decide to, we send the puzzle out ourselves without the endorsement from a big puzzle-loving company. We are still the same, valuable person, no longer giving any power to the dreaded R-word.

Substack writers help me a great deal as I read about their processes and experiences with writing and publishing. Here, I get valuable information from traditional and self-publishing businesses. Since I argue that my book is hybrid published because of the help I received on every step of my journey, I can’t call it self-publishing in good conscience.

A few years ago, I was attending a writer’s workshop, somewhere. For the life of me I can’t remember where, but I do recall one of the attendees speaking out about how she had her book published and “they didn’t even read it,” and she was talking about the company who published her book. It appeared that she thought the company would have editors like traditional publsihing. In my mind I was thinking she had been taken advantage of by a Vanity Press. The viewpoint about Vanity Presses and self-publishing is still alive and well, despite the fact that there are reputable companies to help writers self-publish.

The important thing to note is that a good company is going to have some editors or book coaches that will read and provide feedback on the book. If they don’t, a writer may have to hire an editor and a proofreader in order to publish a quality book. That is why I am fortunate to have found Synergy Publishing with Shana Hartman because they have book coaches, editors, proofreaders, a cover designer, and an interior designer, and even though the book is published through Kindle Direct Publishing, it goes through several sets of eyes before it is sent out to the world.

We tend to assign cultural stereotypes around many things, and one of them is that traditional publishing ensures that a book is good and worth purchasing and reading. I have read several traditionally published books in which I have found typos and errors, and some were just not well written. Of course, the well-written thing is my opinion. My book went through no less than seven readings before it became available for purchase. The last time I read it, I read it backwards to make sure there were no errors.

I still deal with Imposter Syndrome attached to the “I am self-published as opposed to traditional,” voice in my head, but I remind myself that times, they are a-changin, and there is room for all kinds of publishing options. As a matter of fact, just yesterday, I noticed another of my favorite authors is self-published, and he is quite successful.

I have mentioned before that Steven Pressfield is self-published, and now I have learned Alan Cohen is also. I realize that both of them had traditionally published books first, but that doesn’t mean everyone has to follow that path. We are all individuals, so I remind myself that my path is my own and I can choose to do what I wish.

Just for fun, here are some famous authors who are self-published:

Margaret Atwood

E.L. James

Wayne Dyer

Louise Hay

Beatrix Potter

Mark Twain

Stephen Pressfield

Alan Cohen

These are just a few. I did a good bit of research when I was deciding whether or not to self-publish, and what surprised me the most is some of these famous authors self-published back in the day when the stigma around self-publishing was much worse than it is today, despite its continued existence. The biggest determining factor in my decision was I knew and trusted Shana, so I knew I wouldn’t become a victim of bad business practices. I knew she had integrity, and that made all the difference.

I am working on that little monster bitch voice in my head that continues to push its devaluation of my work because I am not traditionally published, and I hope that any writer who is reading this will tell their own devil voice to shut up.

My home is in the western part of the state in the foothills of the mountains, and I love those too, but I’ve always had a special kind of love for the ocean. Walking on the beach, feeling the breeze and the water lapping over the tops of my feet, inhaling the salt air, and seeing the expansive horizon reaching farther than my eyes can discern, all remind me of the beauty and grace of life.

As I walk on the shore, I make it a meditation walk. One day, I had the realization that our lives are like the drops of water in the ocean that form the sea. We are all part of life, like all of the drops are a part of the ocean. In our humanness, we forget that we are a part of something bigger. Our lives make up the human sea. 

Like the water in the ocean, we are allowed our individuality as these drops that form into waves are allowed theirs. Some waves crash in one direction. Some crash and break in another direction, and some waves just peacefully swell seemingly in place. We can live our lives like that, by remembering that we have the freedom to pursue our interests, yet we are still a part of the whole of humanity.

The waves are all doing their thing, but they are doing it in concert with all of the water in the sea. I can choose to move and create one way, change my mind and go the other way, or I can choose to swell with the joy of life in one place. That sounds like a beautiful life to me, and I wonder why it has taken me this long to figure this out. 

 How wonderful would it be if we humans would just do as the waves in the ocean, working at our individual purposes, yet knowing that we are a part of something more meaningful and much larger than ourselves? What a fine world that would be. 

As I prepare to leave for home, I intend to remind myself of these thoughts that came to me on that walk. I believe they came to me from my Creator, and they were for my benefit, but I believe they were also intended for all of us. Life is a gift.  

I am going to make a promise to myself be cognizant of this every day. I know that I will forget sometimes, especially when a hate-filled news story drops or another war breaks out, but I am promising myself that I will make a concentrated effort to go back to that moment at the beach when I received this important message

.

As anyone who has ever read any of my posts knows, I admire Julia Cameron and follow her teachings on writing Morning Pages and taking walks to fuel the writer’s engine.

One day, after my daily writing, my dog and I were on our walk and I heard in my head the song, “Her Strut,” by Bob Seger. I wasn’t consciously thinking about a title for my book, so the song coming into my head like that was a message and it fit.

It took a while for me to craft the song into a title, but I finally got it, and it represents the message I want to convey in this first book:

The word strut has been used in many ways, generally describing a confident way of walking, showing confidence and power. My definition of strut takes that initial definition and expands upon it. I believe strut means the unique qualities of a woman that allow her to own her power and walk tall in life, both literally and metaphorically. Her strut allows her to claim and take up all the space she desires with no apologies, owning her own, unique place in the world. 

The lyrics of the song carry the stereotypical objectification of women in them, but I prefer to use my own interpretations and feel the beat while I visualize an imaginary video flowiing through my mind which helps my writing process. I did this as a teenager, long ago before music videos became a thing.

My message holds a promise of power and the joy of knowing one’s self, not in the power to attract and manipulate men. If a woman claims her own power, she is confident and knows herself, so that if she does decide to enter into a relationship with a man or woman, she is not needy and can give and take in a healthy way. So though the song’s lyrics could have a completely different meaning for another, I choose to view it as a positive goal for women.

Music fuels my imagination, but I can’t listen to songs with lyrics when I am writing, or I will find myself singing along and lose my focus. I listen to classical pieces and meditation-style music as I write, but listening to music with uplifting lyrics and cool rhythm when I am not writing gives me ideas, for titles and more.

I’ve read about writers who recognize the connection that exists across artistic endeavors. Some writers paint, create pottery, make music, do needlework, sculpt and other forms of self-expression. All of these feed one another, but I think that music is the overarching, all-encompassing balm for a creative person’s soul. As I am writing my next book, I will be waiting for the inspiration to see which song brings my next title, story, or section of my newsletter. Art is life, as are songs, dogs, and walking. What could be more satisfying?

Other writers in the thread had different concerns, but one of the more frequent comments was how to stay consistent, and it made me think of the masters again, like Natalie Goldberg, Anne Lamont, and Julia Cameron, among many others. All three women talk of a writing practice and its importance to a writer. 

I think the reason for this is because everyone, writer or not, can attest to struggles with consistency at some point in their lives. We have all struggled with consistency with our exercise programs, nutrition programs, new habits we are trying to instill, and just maintaining a consistent positive outlook on life. Beginning and sustaining a practice of any sort is a good way to think about building consistency. 

I can be the world’s worst at being inconsistent at most things, but one thing I make sure that I do every day is write my Morning Pages (three full 8.5x11 notebook pages a la Julia Cameron). In addition, I make sure to write three pages in my Gratitude Journal. All six pages are in the same notebook, but I designate a difference in the two, and the Morning Pages are more of a stream of consciousness type of writing, as Cameron says, to provide a brain dump of the wild and wacky voices in my head, also known as the Monkey Mind. 

After the Morning Pages and Gratitude Journal pages, I don’t always get my writing in for the project I may have in front of me at the moment, but most of the time I do. The most important thing to me is to maintain those six pages everyday because they lead to a habit of writing and to ideas coming to me throughout the day. It is my hope that if I continue to build this writing practice in the morning, I will build the foundation for writing a set word count for the project at hand every day as I do my the others.

One other thing I do is to tell myself when I realize I am procrastinating is to tell myself what I tell my students in freshman composition classes when they are coming up with fifteen excuses for why they haven’t done their drafts: butt in chair, do the work. That is the bottom line for being consistent, and I have to remind myself of this pretty regularly. 

I tell myself that I will never gain success as a writer by not writing. That is just the bare bones of it, and the reason that a writing practice like Cameron’s Morning Pages are so vital. By making sure I write those allotted number of pages every day, I establish a routine and put those words on the page. They are the only thing that counts. Without the words on the page, there is nothing to draw from to revise and polish, much like there would be no sculptures without a lump of clay. The morning writing practice provides the clay for my finished sculpture. That is my answer for consistency and it is a message to myself. I don’t presume to tell anyone else what to do, but if anyone should question my methods, I suggest reading Writing Down the Bones, by Natalie Goldberg, Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamont, anything by Julia Cameron, and a couple others to check out are: Stephen King’s book, On Writing and, The War of Art, by Stephen Pressfield. They have much more experience than I in consistency.

In the mean time, I will be writing every morning.

I’ve struggled with a good topic to choose for my newsletter this week. I thought about discussing the posts on Substack about traditional versus self-publishing, but enough has been said about that.

Though I am not qualified to discuss the ins and outs of traditional publishing, I have enough life experience to talk about attitude. Pollyanna, I am not, but I am a student of life and a few other things, and how we approach anything will determine our level of success. The key is our definition of success. 

I can hear the snide comments in my head from an imaginary reader, but bear with me here. Science has proven the fact that we are all energy beings and our thoughts are energetic. Therefore, if we approach success from the idea of completing a writing project that is meaningful, it is a rewarding venture. This can provide a feeling of joy in the accomplishment of the task, and I don’t mean that writers shouldn’t desire to be known and well paid.

The desire for our writing to be well-received enough that we gain both personally and financially is normal, and that does happen, more for some than others as is demonstrated by the statistics and posts by several writers in the past two weeks regarding the death of book publication. What I do mean is that the feeling of accomplishment from writing a piece can provide some joy and buoy our spirits while waiting to “make it” in the publishing world. 

I realize that I am fortunate to have a day job to pay the bills while I write with hopes of further success. I don’t discount the very real feeling of fear of not having enough because I have been there and know how that feels.* However, I have learned that success can come in many forms, and the energetic boost that humans can get from being grateful for anything, even something quite small can lift us up as we pursue our dreams. Keeping a positive mindset can work some amazing things out, and in the meantime, we feel pretty good. 

I recognize that the traditional publishing industry is quite competitive, but so are a lot of other things.It is my belief that if I apply myself to write from the depths of my being and to take joy in the accomplishment of a job well-done, I am a success. By reminding myself of this daily, I can relax, knowing that there will be someone out there who will enjoy my words. I may never be a New York Times Bestseller. Of course, I would love that, but if I don’t make it onto that list, I can still approach my writing with a sense of joy and purpose, so whether or not the traditional publishing industry is dying or not–and I suspect that it isn’t–I will continue to enjoy my creative ventures and focus upon the joy I get by completing each piece of writing and sometimes hearing a comment from reader who enjoyed it. That is my definition of success. 

*I have written about overcoming things in a collaborative book and my latest book.

As I thought about what to write this week, I considered some of the books I am currently reading–yes I read more than one–is that weird? One book I am reading is by Tom Cox (@tomcox), here on Substack. It is entitled, Villager, and it is unlike what I usually read. However, I am enjoying it, for it is quite brilliant. Cox’s mastery of the English language in his descriptive writing style and his command of character development qualifies him as a master in my opinion. He is certainly one any writer should study, for by studying the masters, we can only improve our own craft. 

I like to read nonfiction books as well, particularly self-development ones. (I shy away from using the term, self-help, for some strange reason.) One of the nonfiction books I am currently enjoying is by Robin Sharma, and it is entitled, The Wealth Money Can’t Buy: The 8 Hidden Habits to Live Your Richest Life. This one is formatted with short chapters in eight different sections addressing the habits mentioned in the title. It is interesting and helpful in many ways. I like how Sharma addresses wealth from several different categories. The way the book is formatted is such that I approach it as a daily meditative reading, so when I say I read more than one book at a time, I don’t mean I am reading more than one novel at a time. I like to approach self-development books studiously, somewhat like a textbook for a course. 

The third book is a classic by Julia Cameron, yet another master. It is entitled, The Vein of Gold: A Journey to Your Creative Heart. Cameron addresses the processes readers can take to improve their creativity, and she talks about the soul and divine intuition. 

Each author in all three books demonstrate a connection between writing and walks in nature. Tom Cox posts notes and photos on Substack about his walks and it is evident in his book, Villager, that he has a deep connection to nature. Sharma talks in his book about taking walks in nature, and Cameron speaks of walking as a practice every day to enhance the creative process between ourselves and our intuitive selves. She asks the reader to, “consider the possibility that our dreams and desires are the voice of our soul,” and I find that encouraging. It is evident that by reading the masters, we can improve our writing through many different avenues and practices. My own soul voice has spoken to me a few times when I was walking. 

I walk my dog every day though we don’t walk as far as we used to because at fourteen years old, she is slowing down a little, as am I. During one afternoon walk, the title of one of my favorite songs by Bob Seger popped into my head out of seemingly nowhere. The title of my book, Learning to Respect my Strut, came from, “Her Strut.” Seger was always one of my favorite artists, and that song was second in my favorite Seger songs to “Turn the Page.” When the song dropped into my head, I knew I had something, but I had to play around with it for a bit before the final title came. When it came, I knew it was the right one. 

Quieting the mind in meditation is another way of making the connection to the creative side of ourselves, but when I find it difficult to sit in meditation and quiet my mind, walking does the trick. After a few minutes of the constant babbling of my monkey mind, I will open myself up to the birds, butterflies, trees, breeze, sun or clouds, and the scents all around. This effectively calms my mind and allows me to be present in the moment. I am sure this is how my soul gave me the song title to help me with my book. 

I learn a great deal about writing by studying the masters, but I also learn even more about creativity, being human, and allowing intuition to come through, so that I can write with purpose.

Just this morning, I read and responded to a note on substack from @satyarobin on how precious are the early morning hours writing in the silence and getting in touch with emotions. This interchange made me think about Julia Cameron’s morning pages that she recommends to all artists, and she recommends using a pen and a notebook. 

I began the practice of morning pages a few months back, for the second time, and I find them to be everything Cameron says they are. I have a stumbling meditation practice as well, but there are some mornings that the meditation becomes more frustrating than helpful, but I have yet to have that experience with the morning pages. Cameron actually proposes that the morning pages are a form of meditation, and I can’t imagine this working with a keyboard. 

These are my ruminations, but I suspect the thoughts becoming words, phrases, and sentences, tangible evidence, constitutes a great deal of the trepidation writers experience when putting their work out into the world. It begins with recognizing the thoughts, and sometimes that is scary. After all, these are thoughts coming from inside ourselves, quite private, and then these thoughts become available in print on a page where others are allowed access to our innermost musings, or at least the ones we don’t censor. 

It can also feel rather arrogant to write words and expect others to read and appreciate them. Despite it feeling arrogant, we continue to write and hope some reader finds our words valuable and even helpful, purposeful, and uplifting. When I begin writing with a project in mind, if I use pen and paper, somehow the piece feels better to me, like it is somehow more valuable than if I started on a keyboard. I feel less arrogant when I use pen and paper first. Maybe it is because I feel I have put more work into the piece. However, time doesn’t always allow for pen to paper, then to keyboard. Deadlines and the demands of making a living can shorten the time available for writing, causing a rush to the keyboard, but anytime I can, I will hand write something first.

I have recently begun writing short stories, all with the same main character, and I have done them pen to paper. It is fun and that is the main purpose, to have fun, so I think writing with my favorite pen in one of my beloved notebooks feels the best to me because to my mind it is fun to see the words emerge slower. It gives my brain time to create. It could have something to do with my age as well, for I was born in a different era. I know that people born in the digital era have different perspectives on this, and of course that is understandable, but I am glad I grew up without the digital environment, and this is nothing against the internet or social media. I enjoy the benefits of both. I am just glad I had a good, solid background in how writing forms from the mind into words the old way because I think that has given me a strong foundation. 

My work with writing in diaries as a kid, journals as a young adult, and morning pages lately, has helped me with decluttering my thoughts. By doing this, I have been able to envision my words coming out of the morning pages as Michelangelo did with his sculptures: 

“The sculpture is already complete within the marble block, before I start my work. It is already there, I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.”

― Michelangelo

We write from inside of us and the question is, where is inside of us? There is an eternal bank of inspiration to which everyone has access. This explains why we sometimes receive feedback, something we wrote resonated with a reader. We are all a part of the whole, each holding our unique personality with common ground simultaneously. 

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The page, once complete with our thoughts manifesting into solid evidence of themselves, represents our perspectives and reaches out to touch those of like minds. 

I saw some posts from writers who were disgruntled and upset, but I saw more writers who were upbeat and whose posts made my day brighter. I had a conference call with my writing coach that was very productive and while I was on Spring Break this week, I got a couple of projects done in the house. So now, I need to move into the topic for this week. 

Embracing Writing and Life

I wonder how many other writers write in their heads when working on projects like housework and decluttering. I suspect there are many. When I have something I intend to write, I walk around with it in my head a while before it makes it onto the page. For example, I have a fiction piece that began as a response to a prompt in a journal. I let that sit there for a few days, thinking about it, and finally sat down and developed what I had written into a short story. 

Short stories intimidate me. I am not sure if it is because of the pressure of having to focus narrowly in order to create the best story within a limiting word count, or if it comes from that negative voice Steven Pressfield calls Resistance with a capital R, but I suspect it is the idea of facing rejection. 

I see a lot of posts about rejection letters and how the odds of receiving rejections are much higher than letters of acceptance. Things like percentages of rejections over acceptance, stories of famous writers submitting for years before finally being published, and even posts about writers who have made it, but are being attacked by mean, nasty, jealous people in their lives, like all affect a writer’s feelings about their art and their lives and can be hard to overcome.

What I am telling myself is this: Life has its ups and downs, so of course, since writing is a part of life for writers, then it will also have its ups and downs. By giving ourselves the grace to be human beings who write, we can keep honing our craft and putting it out into the world. Not everyone is going to like our work. Not everyone likes us period. That doesn’t mean we are less of a person, or even a bad writer. What it can teach is the ability to do what we do and enjoy it without becoming upset or stressed about negative feedback, and there will be someone out there who needs to read/hear our words. That is what keeps me going. 

If we can focus upon writing that resonates with just one person, then we have made a difference, and I think that is what writing, or any art for that matter, is all about. That is the purpose. So whether I am accepted or rejected, I will continue to write and I will continue to read other writers’ work because studying successful people is a good way to improve. 

After my book, Learning to Respect my Strut: My Journey as a Woman Warrior came out, like every other writer, I hoped people would like it. Since it was published last December, I have had a few really nice comments about it, but the two that meant the most to me came from an email and a message on Instagram. One of the commenters told me how much she resonated with the woman warrior personae I discuss, and the other messaged me and said my book had inspired her to return to writing. If I never receive another cent from royalties or hear another positive comment on that book, I can hold those two close to my heart and know that I achieved my purpose. 

In a nutshell, things like that offer the incentive to continue writing and putting the words out there because that is what life is all about too, taking on challenges and uplifting other humans. I know there will be times when it will seem like I am slogging through a swamp of muck and mire making no progress in life and in writing, but during those times, I will remind myself that good outweighs bad, and there are folks out there who need my help in life and my words in writing. I think I can sustain myself with those thoughts. I will continue to keep the faith, and so the short story will go out soon to encounter acceptance or rejection, and I will go on with life as well.

Writing is important to me, and it is well-known that in order to write well, reading is an undeniably significant component of learning the craft of writing. There are those who are gifted enough to call their writing art, for certain, but I don’t think of myself as one of those gifted folks.

I love to read and have done so since I was old enough to lose myself in a wonderful story. I was chastised at times as a child for having “my nose in a book.” I have pondered the feelings and escape I experienced deep within the pages of a good story and compared them to how people now escape into a video game or social media site. Maybe had I been born in an era with these affordances, instead of reading books like I did, I would be losing myself in the digital wonderland, but I will never know.

At any rate, I have talked with some of my students and most of them enjoy the digital world and eschew reading. As a result, I have observed in the classroom the ever decreasing number of students who enjoy reading anything except for posts on these aforementioned social media sites, and even that has transmuted to watching videos on TikTok instead of reading posts. I hate to sound like the old fuddy-duddy singing the virtues of the halcyon days of my childhood because everyone knows how tiring and exaggerated it can be.

It is, however, quite upsetting that students don’t take the time to read instructions for an assignment. Instructions, I might add, that instructors must spend a great deal of time writing, revising, and assessing for clarity and brevity so that the students have clear guidelines to follow as they complete the assignments. This is not an undocumented claim, unfortunately. I have had students in online classes email me saying they are confused about an assignment, yet when I respond with a reference to the assignment resources and guidelines that are prominantly displayed in the learning system platform, like Moodle, Blackboard, or Canva, they respond in surprise as though they had no notion of the existence of said instructions. This is monumentally frustrating to say the least.

I write about his here because these occurrences have caused me to ponder the decision I have made to write for publication. After all, if so many people today have no desire to read anything, what good is it for me to write for an audience? Yet, to be fair, I know there are people out there who read, and Substack is a place that demonstrates this to me daily.

Trying to express to my students my own love for writing and how important it is to be able to communicate effectively is a difficult proposition, and I hate to say this, but I have seen a drastic drop in educational levels of reading comprehension and ability to write coherently in the last couple of years that is alarming. This makes cultivating an affection for the written word seem impossible to convey, especially to students who would rather look at their smart phones in class instead of focus and take notes.

I have seen various studies on how the digital environment has negatively affected people’s ability to focus, resulting in more ADHD diagnoses and other sundry labels. What is really interesting is that many students choose topics such as ADHD, Anxiety, and the negative effects of social media on their psyches, their self-esteem, and their ability to focus. Despite choosing these topics and writing about them, they still stay glued to their phones in class, and when they turn in an essay, most of the time it is at a level of writing that is more suited to the tenth grade of high school instead of freshman composition. It seems they recognize the problems, at least for the purposes of their essay, yet they are either unwilling or unable to take steps in addressing the problem. From the general public’s point of view, the problem is ours as teachers to solve.

 In addition to this, the digital environment is not going anywhere. For that matter, AI threatens to take away the full time writer’s ability to make a living (which has traditionally never been a good living) and looms over the heads of teachers( another underpaid profession). AI can be used for helpful tasks, such as writing course learning outcomes, syllabi, or creating rubrics, among other things, but using it seems sacrilegious in many ways, at least it does to me. Yet not using it for tasks like these seems counterproductive because it saves hours of time in monotonous writing tasks, time that could be better served with more important writing projects.

Justifying the use of AI for these tasks is also rather hypocritical when we tell our students they can’t use it for their own purposes. However, as I write this I think of the old adage that I believe has been credited to Stephen King:

As I continue to struggle to find a way to inspire a love for both reading and writing in my students, I will continue to love reading and writing and believe that the beauty of art will always outweigh the production of content. Call me a dreamer, but that is what I choose to dwell upon.

I still believe that good writing, whether lucky human artist or a crafter, will always create better writing than a machine.

Friends I hadn’t seen in a while showed up, along with folks I see almost everyday, and that made it magical, so why did every time I signed a book, that voice in my head was saying things like, “Do you think this person is going to really like your book or will they hate it?” or “Don’t get cocky, it isn’t like you are a New York Times Bestselling author or anything.” I think this probably happens to most writers who become published.

I have taken courses from a couple of famous writers on their platforms and sat in on some webinars, etc., and it seems like every time, each writer would say that they all experience the same angst for every book they publish. After all, these writers I speak of have reached monumental levels of success in their writing careers, yet they still have those doubts and fears. 

The book launch party was for my first book in a series and I will have book two coming out in January of 2025. Each time I sit down to write the second one, I experience more of those negative voices in my head saying this next book won’t be any good because I used up all I had for the first one. This is stupid because there is always available material, so I think these thoughts all fall under the label that Steven Pressfield calls Resistance with a capital R. 

Though Pressfield has many books under his belt and is still cranking them out, he talks on his weekly blog about how he still experiences the same kind of Resistance thinking that I have been experiencing. That helps me when I start feeling really stuck. 

Maybe it is worse these days due to the information regarding how difficult it is to become a published writer and even after publication how hard it is to make a living from it. It has never been an easy task for sure, but the current culture of social media postings and constant bombardment of “successful” entrepreneurs and “influencers” displaying the dream of becoming rich and famous and the presentations of perfect lives in a rolling avalanche of death scrolls can wreak havoc on the psyche if allowed. 

This assault of social media brings up the old image of the lone writer in a nook somewhere remote, cut off from society and human interaction, slogging away at a keyboard. This can be both alluring and depressing. A lot of writing occurs in a solo venture, but a lot of it occurs in a collaborative environment, and if a writer wishes to sell any books, collaboration is key. 

There is no way I would have been able to achieve the success I enjoyed yesterday at my book launch party without the help of my dear friends. That is collaboration at its peak. Though I seem like a people person when I do things like that, I reach a point where I need to go off and be alone to recharge. In other words, I am peopled out. This is probably true for a lot of people, and I suspect it is more true for writers. 

Finding a balance for that, though that phrase has become a colloquial commonality these days, is important. I wouldn’t function well if I had to do an event like that every week, but I know in order to sell more books I need to do more than one event, so I will step back, recharge, reconnect with my posse of women warriors and we will do another event. I will depend upon two of my friends who truly shine when planning and executing these galas and thank my lucky stars for friends who can plan and friends who attend, and friends who support. That way, I can overcome Resistance both with my own ability and with collaboration from fantastic friends.

My friend is also a colleague, and we had just wrapped up a committee meeting on which we both serve. We stepped outside in the beautiful warm sunshine that we were enjoying after the gray, cold months of January and February here in the South. 

My friend told me that he was reading my book and had just finished the section about my grandmother. He related how my stories reminded him of his own grandmother and how she definitely had her own strut. He told me of one story involving her confronting some young beer-drinking, disrespectful youths with her shotgun she kept in her little Chevy S-10 pickup truck. After he recounted the story to me (by the way, no shots were fired) he said it made him emotional. 

This is the reason for writing. I told him as much. Sure, it is wonderful to become a bestselling author, I am sure. Of course I haven’t reached that pinnacle, and there are no guarantees that I will; however, I have had more than one person reach out to me to tell me how my book has touched them, and I could ask for no more than that. 

Writing is about connection, at least in my opinion it is. Each time I hear from a reader of how my book affected them, I hold that in my soul and thank the All-That-Is for the opportunity to pursue my dreams of writing things that touch people. This is my purpose, and it took a very long time for me to come to that epiphany. 

No matter if I ever reach that high summit of bestselling books, I will continue to write because it has become a part of who I am. I hope that as I continue my writing practice, I will improve and touch more readers on an emotional level that can only be done between writer and reader. These are silent conversations we engage in that hold meaning beyond the affordances of written language. 

All a writer hopes for is for the opportunity to reach readers, even just one is truly enough, though we rarely realize this. We feed our souls with the words from another who creates that food with which we feed our souls with their own soul material. 

Soul to soul, that is the goal.

I overheard a young lady speaking with our instructor (I will refer to her as A) about her hair she had just colored pink. She said she had put her photo online so that people could get used to it before they saw her in public to keep down the negative comments.

Being me, I looked up, got her attention and said, “Can I ask you a question?”

She smiled and said okay.

“Why are you worried about what other people think of your hair color? After all, it’s your hair, not theirs.” 

She answered me by saying that she struggles with that kind of thing. I then told her that no one else’s opinion should matter because it is her hair, her body, her life, etc., etc. She smiled that beautiful smile and said,

“I love that. That helps because I have a wedding I am attending this weekend in Atlanta, and I am nervous about it.” 

A conversation ensued among myself, A and the young lady with pink hair in which we discussed judgment, and A told her if people judged her on her hair and tattoos, they aren’t the kind of people she needs as friends anyway. A is younger than I am by a few years, but the pink-haired young lady appears to be somewhere in her late twenties. This conversation goes straight to some of the things I’ve written about in several pieces and my book, Learning to Respect my Strut: My Journey as a Woman Warrior. 

Women seem to always be on the receiving end of more negative comments from people who apparently have nothing else in their lives to occupy themselves, so they spend their time trying to tear others down.  

At some point in our lives, we women have been openly judged and criticized for our clothing, hair, nails, body size, ability to walk in those ridiculous shoes, our attractiveness, our laugh, our voice, our age, our weight, and the list goes on and on. The objectification of women has been going on for a long time, not just in the last few decades. The expectations for women’s attire and appearance can generally be attributed to conventions set by the patriarchy and religion.

Since this piece was inspired by a real-life discussion about pink hair, and later, tattoos, I won’t get into body image right now. The main thing I realized as I thought through this is that it seems some things don’t change that much. There definitely has been very little change in the tendency for people to judge others, especially women, on their outward appearance. Hair is just one focal point for criticism.

I, for one, no longer color my hair. I did for years, but when I hit my 60s, I decided I would just let my hair be its natural salt and pepper (these days mostly salt). When I was having my hair colored, I never tended toward the colors that aren’t natural hair color, and there have been times when I’ve seen someone with purple or green hair and made personal judgments about how I think it looks, but I don’t attack people for it. I also correct myself soon after, in my head of course, and remind myself that it is none of my business how someone else wears their hair. 

Do I think pink hair is cute? Not so much, but it is not my hair. The young lady in pottery class is beautiful regardless of her hair color or her full-sleeve tattoos. That is the bottom line. Everyone is beautiful in his or her own way. Additionally, we should all mind our own damned business. If everyone kept their nose in their own life, the world would be a better place. 

I have long been an advocate for letting women be themselves and telling those who judge to shut the hell up or just move on, and this is clear in my book. From the conversation, I received validation in my mind that my purpose in writing my book is a valuable one. I want my book to help women to find their own power, accept themselves for who they are, and love themselves thereby giving them the freedom to live their lives unencumbered and to the fullest. This revelation in my head reminded me how much material life has to offer for my writing, like the one conversation in pottery class with a sweet kind with pink hair.

The title of my book, Learning to Respect my Strut, represents the journey I made to find my own power and freedom, and now I want to help other women do the same. My next two books–three in the series–will continue the quest to assist women in understanding that they don’t have to abide by the ridiculous cultural expectations for women that have been in place for entirely too long. That feeling that washed over me during that conversation in pottery class was a feeling of true purpose and value, my value as an older woman trying to help a younger woman get to a place of self-acceptance faster than the time it took me to do the same. 

This feeling made me realize that, though I would absolutely love becoming a bestselling author, it is ok if I don’t, if I can continue to help other women be more free and accepting of themselves. Older women have counseled younger women since time began, but it isn’t always the best counsel. Some women have lost themselves to those very same cultural constructs and limitations that have oppressed them.

Whatever a woman chooses in her life, be it independence, success in the corporate world, success in a traditional male dominated job, mother, homemaker, Olympic champion, soldier, pilot, potter, or writer, it is her choice and she has the right to pursue it. That is my purpose. That is what I am about, helping women to see that they can be or do what they want, and the cultural constructs can be eliminated or at least ignored.

Any writer will admit that life provides material, and as I stated in the first line of this post, it is inherently known. Sometimes, I just need a reminder, and I am glad for the material and for the validation of my purpose in that interaction.

This week as March begins with its designation as Women’s History Month, I wanted to share some excerpts from my book because in the first part of it, I discuss women’s history and how large portions of it haven’t been included in the history textbooks. 

The Valkyries

“Valkyrie, also spelled Walkyrie, Old Norse Valkyrja (“Chooser of the Slain”), in Norse mythology, any of a group of maidens who served the god Odin and were sent by him to the battlefields to choose the slain who were worthy of a place in Valhalla.” The true Viking world’s Valkyries were portrayed in artwork and oral storytelling as terrifying. Yet, when the Christian monks of medieval times began writing about them, they distorted the stories using their own fantasies to paint these women as beautiful, erotic beings. This is early evidence of males subverting images of women to objectify them as sexually tempting and to hide the authentic power of women. When I discovered this, I thought of the pictures of those big-breasted super hero women in graphic novels and the like, created by male fantasies in the 21st Century. It seems they weren’t the first males to sexualize women to subvert their strength and power. 

1Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Valkyrie." Encyclopedia Britannica, October 1, 2023. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Valkyrie-Norse-mythology.

Male fantasies and their objectification didn’t begin with these fanciful monks I am sure, but I do wonder when it first began. Could it have begun in the Stone Age? It is hard for me to fathom a weak female during that era or for many after that, certainly. 

As I worked through the research for my book, I found many examples of women who had pushed back against the cultural norms and expectations of their time and did as they pleased as far as they could within the structures of their society in their time. I began seeing some posts on Facebook about women in history who stood out and did some fantastic things. 

I would like to do my part in celebrating women during the month of March, so I would like to add a couple more excerpts from my book here regarding women in history. 

The Vikings and the Amazons of ancient history are not the only female warriors. Women were snipers in WWII for Russia. The most famous female sniper, Lyudmila Pavlichenko, had the nickname, Lady Death.2hile she was attending university, she volunteered for the infantry in the Red Army and at first, was encouraged to become a nurse, but she eventually made her way into the army. Even in more recent history, the Vietnam War had a female sniper and torturer of infamous acclaim. She was known as Apache, and she became a target high on the list for the American troops because of her sadistic ways. She was killed by Carlos Haithcock, the famous American Sniper of the Vietnam era. All in all,the history here supports the fact that women have every capacity to be as heroic, courageous, warlike, cruel, and vicious as men. Our history is important, and knowing this history of women warriors is important as well. We have been brainwashed, oppressed, demoralized, and hoo-doo-ed to believe that we were meant to be subservient to men. That is not true. That is horseshit. We need our daughters to know our legacy. They need to know they have their own power. All they have to do is understand the history of women and believe in themselves. If we train our daughters to know and believe this, it could change our world. The victimization of women might very well be on its way to disappearing. The reason we were brainwashed and oppressed by the patriarchy is because of fear, fear of our fierceness as warriors. The Ancestral OG Strut is the fierce warrior that resides inside each of us. That warrior that had been buried, hidden, oppressed, sexually objectified, raped, beaten, ostracized, bullied, pushed down, and forced into servitude under the guise of proper ladylike decorum and religious bullshit. But the Ancestral OG Strut is still there. Some of us are claiming it, and others are becoming aware of the power of womanhood. I encourage each of you to reach down and grab that deeply hidden, still powerful warrior, and strut your identity. Awaken to your heritage. The strut of the warrior women is not necessarily a physical battlefield anymore, but there are still fields of battle we face every day. The Ancestral OG strutting warrior women did what they had to do to survive and thrive. So can we. All we have to do is find our own strut and use it to rise up and be who we were meant to be, powerful women. Use it to show that we will not be subservient, that we have a purpose, and that we have the right to pursue our dreams. And as you embark on this journey with me, strut your shit. It is your right.

I hope that these excerpts from my book convey the significance I place upon women owning their power and individualism as we celebrate women’s history month.    

Our stories will provide the fertile ground for our daughters and sisters to know that we are unstoppable. 

We are worthy. 

We are enough. 

We are warriors. 

We are women.

This morning I received a notification from a reader on my Instagram account and it made my day.

This young lady reached out to me to tell me that she had read my book and it inspired her to return to writing just for herself. She said she hadn’t written for herself since high school and she shared a piece she wrote for publication.

Every writer, or at least many, wish for a NY Times Bestseller or equivalent, and I am no different, but when I saw that notification, the true reason for my writing became strong and clear.

When I began writing this book, my book coach, also a Mind-Body Coach, had me do a visualization exercise in which she instructed me to paint a picture in my mind of the one reader who would benefit most from reading my book. We did this on more than one occasion, and when I received the Instagram notification this morning, that visualization exercise took on a whole new meaning.

What is the purpose of writing and sending our work out for others to read? I have desired to be a writer for many, many years, and I fell into the trap of focusing upon getting a publishing deal, selling lots of books, and becoming a bestselling author, but I know my true motivation, the honest purpose that rests deep inside. It has always been there, the desire for my writing to touch someone, give them a good feeling, and maybe even help them to feel like I am there with them, cheering them on. My purpose has been hidden by my visions of grandeur at times, but it has never disappeared, and the notification this morning reminded me of it.

Today, I felt that very deeply, and if I don’t sell another book, of course I will be disappointed because I am not going to be dishonest; however, I will remind myself of this young lady, and a few others who have reached out to tell me my book helped them in some way, and I will stay the course.

Another excerpt from my book:

When I began my book, I didn’t know what would come from my writing about women finding their strut. As with most writing, it began in one direction, but veered off into various other paths of discovery including belief systems that I am still exploring.

As writers, we are always discovering things as we go about the process, and I am glad that the book turned out the way it did. Writing is a discovery process, and I enjoy my discoveries as I make my way through the process, and I am going to remind myself of this very thing when the resistance demon shows up in my mind and tries its best to discourage me.

This is a conversation space in the Substack app that I set up exclusively for my subscribers — kind of like a group chat or live hangout. I’ll post short prompts, thoughts, and updates that come my way, and you can jump into the discussion.

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I just recently had my first in a planned series of three books published. It is entitled, Learning to Respect my Strut: My Journey as a Woman Warrior.

I want to use this space to talk about writing and life, how my writng has benefitted my life and how my life fuels my writing. I hope to use it to get to know readers and writers and to introduce everyone to my books and to have a sounding board as I work on my newest one. I have already gained some knowledge on marketing and writing that has helped.

For this space, I will discuss things about writing and publishing, women, living and hopefully, get feedback from others because that would be invaluable, for when we help each other, we can’t go wrong.

My plan is to publish here once per week on Fridays. Once I get my course I am developing completed, I will be offering that as a paid subscription. More on that later.

Here is a quote that informed my writing and an excerpt from my first book Learning to Respect my Strut.

“Women can be found on this island who are far superior in courage and virtue to others of their sex. The historians of the island refer to one Dian-Rhea, who brought the entire island under her scepter. Dian-Nong, Amboulee’s princes gave countless proofs of her bravery and magnanimity. Several times she went to war at his side and saved his life more than once.” 
-David Jones, Women Warriors: A History (2005)

The word strut has been used in many ways, generally describing a confident way of walking, showing confidence and power. My definition of strut takes that initial definition and expands upon it. I believe strut means the unique qualities of a woman that allow her to own her power and walk tall in life, both literally and metaphorically. Her strut allows her to claim and take up all the space she desires with no apologies, owning her own, unique place in the world.  

Changes

Last week, I wrote about my experience and my decision to choose the self-published route and I gave my reasons for choosing self-publishing. Here, I am going deeper and discussing how my original idea for the book changed and the doubt that followed.

I began with the idea to write about women and their power, and in my mind, I wished for the book to help women claim their power. I didn’t plan for the book to be a memoir genre, but it ended up as a type of memoir, but unlike a standard one. I found out later in a workshop I attended that there is a thing called a teaching memoir that better fit in describing my book, although that sounds slightly obnoxious to my mind because that asshole voice in my head is saying, “who the hell do you think you are to teach people anything? Boy are you arrogant.”

If you continue to read my posts, I am sure you will come to dislike that inner asshole voice of mine as much as I do. I bet you have one of your own.

Organization and Epiphany

The book took over a year to complete, but not because of a lack of words. It was an organizational problem. I had the words. Had it not been for the insight of one of my writing coaches, I would still be floundering. She read the entire work, which was considerably longer than the final 128 pages of the completed text, and when we had our session afterwards, she said, “Karen, I understand why you are having trouble with the organization. This is not onebook, but three.”

That epiphany seemed confusing to me at first, but as we discussed it and she explained how she envisioned the three books and how they would be formatted and arranged, it made perfect sense.

Self-Doubt

After speaking with Cindy and realizing that she probably was right, we continued to refine, edit, and proofread. During all of this, I worried about the book not being thick enough to be taken seriously. I know that these doubts came from the limiting belief system that my book was going to be self-published. I was afraid if it was too thin, it would look like a “self-published” book, like one of those I had seen and read in the past that was easily identified as DIY and lacking a professional appearance.

I shouldn’t have worried because the cover and interior designers and Cindy’s intuitive ability to lay out a perfectly clear and effective table of contents worked well and I am proud of the book’s appearance and its contents.

Why the Doubt?

I sat down and had a long session of self reflection about why I had those doubts because that is just who I am. Why was I so worried about the book looking “self-published”?

I have wanted to be a writer since I was ten or eleven years old, but it has taken over fifty years for me to suck it up and do the damned work. Through those years, I have read countless articles in Writer’s Digest magazine and others describing the publication world, the process of submitting, the absolute certainty of rejections, the devastation to a writer’s reputation from a bad publication, etc., etc., so I had a belief system still grounded in the traditional way of doing things. In other words, the only way to “make it” as a published author was to run the gauntlet.

As time wore on and I performed my due diligence prior to making my final decision on self-publishing, I found several self-published books that were good and had made bestseller lists. The previous link provides only seven; there have been many, many more, but more importantly, I needed to interrogate the deeper implications of my self-doubt.

I realized that I would have the self-doubt wheter I went with the traditional or self-publishing route. What I realized was that I had been placing more value on a traditional publication choice because of the beliefs of myself and other people, the belief that in order for a book to be good, it had to move through all of the steps and navigate all of the gatekeepers before it could be considered worthy of readers.

There is nothing wrong with having steps to complete before publishing a book. Certain steps allow for the best possible product, and editing, revising, and proofreading are paramount in either pathway. As I continued to reflect on these ideas, I remembered several times I have read traditionally published books with typographical errors and sentences that didn’t make sense to me. Mistakes happen regardless of the path. We are human.

As I considered this further, I began to understand the real reason I felt so much self-doubt about choosing not to go the traditional route.

The Revelation

I didn’t have enough confidence in my own self worth, and in the past, I was using the fact that traditional publishing usually takes quite some time and involves numerous rejections before acceptance, if accepted at all, and acceptance or rejection is based upon more than just the writing.

This was a revelation for me. If I didn’t believe in myself, how in the world could I expect anyone else to believe in me. So I squared my shoulders, told myself to face up to my fears and invest in myself. I am glad I did.

Confession

I am still working on my self confidence and claiming my self worth, and as I said, I am glad I self-published, but I would be dishonest if I didn’t come out and confess that I would still like to have my books picked up by a traditional publisher.

Though that statement sounds as though I contradicted everything I just said, the fact is, most bestsellers are traditionally published, so instead of locking myself into only one approach, I think it best to keep moving forward, working on my books, and considering all options as I progress toward my dreams.

I think that is good advice for myself and I don’t take credit for it. I have heard that very thing many times from many different sources. One old adage that comes to mind: Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket. So I am going to fill all of the baskets systematically and focus on the joy of getting my words down.