Dear Athena,

Happy 48th birthday! You had to use a calculator to figure out how old you are this year. Seriously? You forgot? Well, the bad news is—that probably won’t get better from here. The forgetting thing, I mean. Good luck with that. Also, gravity, menopause, and rando white hairs stronger than titanium in awkward places are starting to be the new normal. Good times.

Anywho, it’s been a hell of a year, girl. Let’s recap. So, you decided not to renew the Hollywood production contract for obvious reasons we’ve discussed before—however, since you’re forgetting things I’ll just remind you quickly: Hollywood is not your jam. It’s a real nice idea. It sounded like it would be lots of fun, but it only took a few years of discussions at some really high-level tables for you to realize, that’s not how you work. It’s not how you create. It’s not how you want to live. So, when the option came to renew, and you’d already given up so much of your life, finances, creative control, safety, and comfort, you opted not to continue.

Then you flopped down next to the creek and wept. What if you fucked up? What if you were supposed to take that contract? What if that was your only option to bring your books to life and grow your worlds?

OR… what if it would have been the last step in a steep decline toward losing yourself and your creativity altogether?

Life is funny. You nearly sold the house you adore, twenty years of writing, and everything about yourself that you have made peace with and even learned to love. And what it looked like to people who weren’t in the room was, yet another fuck up by Athena. Like, when is she going to stop bungling shit, ya know?

But you were in the room. You know what happened. You made a choice. You walked away from damaging talks and a dangerous precipice that would go against who and what you are. All you got to show for it was a lousy T-shirt and a sore liver. Oh, and a few more white hairs in a place that can’t be easily shaved. Awesome.

For a few months you thought, “That’s all she wrote.” The end, sister. But as winter rains began and you decided to go ahead and start unpacking the house again after having packed up to move to LA, a shift returned to the creative space.

At the same time, it became evident that the developer team you were working with to build a streaming franchise platform was not going to come through. The third one to fail the contract. The last in a string of developers who liked the idea but could not complete. The first one took the idea and ran with it on their own without you—or tried to, anyway. The second team charged you a small fortune to show zero results in six months. The third told you it just could not be done. The specs were too advanced and the process too challenging. But not before you’d spent money on legal, contracts, and deposits. All for nothing.

Hollywood was a no-go. Moving to LA was cancelled. And the Storyverse Stream platform was a washout.

You caved.

You unboxed your kitchen, putting China back on the shelves. You unpacked your studio, putting art supplies back on the racks. Slowly, you started to realize that the furniture you’d sold or given away to prepare for your move wasn’t really missed—but that you’d probably need to re-buy that stuff eventually once you figured out what’s next.

What’s next? A weird question that felt like a pebble under your eyelids at night. What’s next?

The question burned a hole in your mind because the alternative was giving up completely—and that's just not your thing. I’m going to be honest and remind you, so you don’t forget…you were sad. You got into a rut.

Until a massive 250 foot Douglas Fir came down in a winter storm and shook your life up. Literally. That Doug Fir crashed next to your house so hard it rattled the windows, knocked a wine glass off the table, and clipped your watershed JUST ENOUGH to blow out your water supply to the house. Six inches west and the tree would have smashed the house while you were in it. Six inches east, and the tree would have crushed your well house and the compression tank and filtration systems. It missed the house, the wheelbarrow, the well head, the hazelnut tree, the car, and the trash can. It smashed the garden fence, and crushed a rose bush, and buried the strawberry patch. No one and nothing critical had been irreparably destroyed.

It also felt like your spirit left your body for about ten minutes as you raced outside in the dark and rain to see if anything or anyone had been hurt. Then all you could do was wait out the storm hoping nothing else would come down, and wait for daylight to see how bad it all was. The power was back on by morning, but the storm continued raging. The insurance company was fast to act and got you moved into a hotel within a few hours because there was no water to the house.

As you drove down the mountain, the landslide happened behind you, cutting off the house and the community for three days while you were safely in a hotel with running water and power.

Yes, everyone was fine and the whole community made it. Just another storm in the forests of Oregon. The people up in the woods are resilient if nothing else. Strong, capable and resilient.

However, it seriously made you rethink a few things about that giant question: What’s next?

Six inches west or east and the story would have been different. If the tree had fallen south, it would have dammed the creek and you would have likely lost the whole house, and several others down the road. But it came down to precision luck that you had absolutely nothing to do with. You got lucky. Four tons of lumber missed you by inches.

Thus, you found yourself living in a hotel for a month while working with contractors to get the tree chopped up and removed, and the temporary water line repaired enough to get partial water to the house, enough to at least shower and flush toilets. (Seven months later you’re still waiting on a full repair, and cannot drink anything from the taps. Baby steps. Repairs and rebuilds can take time.)

Over that month it was Christmas, New Year's, and the feeling of stepping into a new version of what your creative life would look like now that you were for sure unpacking and rebuilding your place in the woods. Plans to venture out were scrapped, and you locked in for a long haul… not really having a new plan yet.

Then the news came about your dad. He was being moved to hospice. It was like a second tree falling, this time in your emotional world, a pillar holding up your realm was coming down, and again it shook your abode.

You were able to travel to Utah to see him, and despite his condition and health he was able to get up, move around and was cogent enough to know you were someone he loved, though he could not remember your name or who you were to him.

Yet when he looked at you, he was happy. He was content. He was glad to see you. He was ready for the next journey, whatever that might look like for him. He knew his situation and he was clearly determined to get through it. He was optimistic, gentle, and warm all the way up to the moment you held his face and kissed his cheek goodbye and hugged him. He hugged you back… fiercely with frail, shaking arms.

You wept the whole drive home. (Months later he still lingers in long-term hospice, surprising doctors almost daily.)

The change took hold when you got back home from Utah. The house was a mess, it being difficult to keep clean and refreshed when water interruptions make the laundry pile up, and the dishes smell. You hit a point when you just stared out the window, eyes swollen from crying, a stack of old photos of your dad on the end table. Photos of your photography trips together, rock hunting, road trips and so on.

Your dad was one of the only people in your life that never asked you to BE anyone for him. Your experience with him as a father figure was completely different from your siblings’ relationships. Something about who you are informed him at some point in your relationship that you were just going to be whatever you are going to be, and he was going to have to love you regardless. And he did just that.

He remarked on many occasions, “You’re going to do what you’re going to do—I need to support that in a way that makes the most sense for me.”

What that looked like is when you told him you were headed out on a year-long road trip across the country at age 27 in your Jeep, alone… he said, “I don’t like that idea. I don’t like you going out there alone as a young woman.” But the next morning he had changed the oil in the Jeep, checked the tire pressure, and packed a cooler of snacks for your adventure.

What that looks like is when you were trapped in a storm on Highway 66 four weeks later and you were tucked into a hotel in Albuquerque and an old man was chewing you out for being a woman traveling alone and demanded to speak to your father. (Seriously? Almost 30 and needing a father’s permission?) You obliged and called your dad, handing the phone off to the old fart who was blocking your room at the hotel. And after the old man chastised your dad you very clearly heard your father’s voice say, “Son, I don’t know who you think you are to hold my daughter up on her quest, but if you are smart you’ll just get out of her way. It’s not going to end well for you if you try to stop her from getting somewhere she’s determined to go.”

At home in the woods, staring down the barrel of 48, and in need of a full home unpacking and reorg, a watershed rebuild, a creative life overhaul, and a review and revision of family relationships—you hit a wall and just sat.

Is this it, then? Is the end of this timeline a string of losses and closures, collapses, and giving up?
An ad had popped up on your feed while you were sitting at the hotel that winter, waiting for the water repairs. You were eating yet another frozen burrito and wondering what the fuck was next. It was an ad for an AI platform building software. Another AI tool.

Exhausted and bored, curious-ish, and at the end of a rope… you typed the Storyverse specs into the AI builder. You took a bite of burrito and before you could swallow it had framed the first part of the build in less than 32 seconds.

You blinked. Swallowed hard. That can’t be right. Right?

So, you clicked on a few of the functions and they worked. You burst into tears—equal parts relief and shock. The AI had done in 32 seconds what you’d been trying to accomplish with teams for the last three years at tremendous expense and massive pushback then failure or idea theft. Idea theft from other humans, by the way, not idea theft from AI.

You sat back. Stunned. Lost. Disbelieving. “But they said it couldn’t be done?”

But it was a fragile hope. A silly possibility. You picked at it for a while using free credits. You tweaked specs, put in vibe code and tweaked some more. Once out of credits for the month you would set it aside and think no more about it until you got back from your trip to Utah to visit your dad, your once vibrant creative, curious dad who always knew you were just going to do what you were going to do and he loved you for it anyway.

One day after you’d been home for a week going through all his old photos you found the stack of pictures where you’d gone on that trip to the petroglyph canyon together. It must have been 2006 or 2007. You’d both wandered through that canyon in Southern Utah taking photos of ancient images in stone and chatting about what you thought each image might mean. You thought all the petroglyphs of the sun meant “year”, because why spend a day carving a symbol for “day” when that day would be over by the time the carving was done. Your dad laughed and said something like, “A lot can happen in a day that makes it worth remembering, but I see your point. What if sun means “love” or “life” because we can’t have life without the sun. Or “future”, or “daylight”. You both waxed on about the many symbols before hiking back to the Jeep. And as you were pulling out of the canyon he said, “I wish we knew what they were trying to tell us. Whatever it was it was important enough to work it into stone. What we leave behind is really the only proof that we were here—and why bother leaving that proof if it hasn’t had some kind of emotional or mental impact on the quality of life for those who come behind us.”

It wasn’t the first time you’d chatted about the seven generation laws, or the rule of purpose in what constitutes legacy. But that day on the couch as the photos were packed back into the box and you got up from your weeping to tackle the smelly dishes, and piles of laundry you began making your plans for what’s next. You drove to town and hauled 20 gallons of water back to the house and set about getting things cleaned up. When the dishes were put away and the laundry was folded, you sat down at the desk and started building. You didn’t look up again for days.

Dear Athena,

This year you took some heavy losses. Some were voluntary when you walked away to protect yourself and your work. Others came when your ideas and work were taken. Others were to the whims of a benevolent but firm Mother Nature. Then finally your greatest loss was the inevitability of time and the human condition of mortality impacting someone you love. In all, despite the churn and the overwhelming slog of the world affairs and political hog-slopping, etc. you realized there is work to be done. There was rebuilding and reorienting to do in your own life, relationships to heal, and the next thing to build—not just for yourself, but for the next seven generations to follow. And you knew you needed to get on it while your dad might still be lingering around to see it.

Happy 48th Note to Self, Athena. This year you were reminded of how small you are, how fragile we humans are in our walking blood suits and tender mortalities. This year you realized that doing what’s right for your creative and personal health means taking the long cut through the dark forest with a machete and a pocket full of breadcrumbs.

You’re no longer interested in playing by rules of institutions that designed the game to default in their favor. You’re not going to play the house anymore—you’re just going to rebuild the house the way you like it. In fact, you’re not really interested in industry rules or collective expectations built and trained on those industry rules either, so might as well just remap all that to your own liking anyway. What is there to lose? Nothing, really. Time and a little effort.

You took the training montage of chop wood, carry water at its most literal and began building, training, and reforming a plan to create an alternate route to where you are determined to go—as your dad always knew you somehow would—and make the path wide enough for others to follow, and sturdy enough to last long after you are gone. No small feat. That’s a lot of chopping wood and carrying water.

In the end you built a platform, far more robust than you’d originally imagined. It didn’t take you a developer team and a bottomless pocketbook. It took you six months and roughly a car payment. It’s more open, inclusive, and supportive than you originally hoped. It became more than you had dreamed, and it’s set up to support artists and creators long after you are gone. For seven generations if… it’s done well.

Ultimately, if you had carved a sun on the petroglyph canyon, it would mean life, art, love, community and future generations all in one symbol. Instead, you carved a StoryverseStream into the internet and sent out invites.

So in the end, as 47 wraps and 48 kicks off you are feeling like a new creative Renaissance has begun. The old rules don’t apply anymore. Embrace the weird white hairs, they are a marker of your progress. Accept the menopause pooch and anti-gravity bras, they are a record that you have passed that goal line. Make peace with the daily life inconveniences, water issues and political strife—it is part of being a human on this planet. Fix what you can, and be patient with the rest. Some days you will be up, and others you’ll be flat on your back, recalculating.

May this year be a beautiful hooray for your father to witness as he clocks out and takes the next adventure. May you be well situated from here forward to bring in change to creative industries that need the oxygen and hydration, the nutrients and the creative sparks. May this year bring you boatloads of creators looking for a new platform to grow upon, stand with and exalt themselves.

And may you find joy and peace in witnessing their evolutions and success.
​
Many happy returns.
With love,
Athena

In a recent visit to my father in hospice, he rallied enough to get up and move around. I’d brought my DSLR camera hoping to show him, but I realized the body would be too heavy for his frail arms to hold, even without the lens. So I ran down to the store and grabbed a disposable Kodak point-and-shoot because it was lighter and more nostalgic.

He was able to walk outside with us into the sunlight. He can’t remember now that I’m his daughter, or even what my name is, but when I put the camera in his hands, he adjusted his posture, aimed at a flower, tilted to adjust for the light, and held his breath as he always did just before a shutter click. Then he turned to me and said—to the daughter he can’t remember—“I lined the shot to go from here… then topped it here.” He motioned to the frame he’d snapped, and then he smiled.

It was a moment captured between heartbeats.

I left the camera with him at the hospice center so he could take the remaining photos if the mood struck him. Then I wept the thirteen-hour drive home.

Twenty years ago, when those early digital camera conversations took place, cameras in phones weren’t really a thing yet. Once Apple launched the iPhone camera and the technology rapidly evolved, everyone could take professional-level photos. And it’s been wonderful.

Then, as post-edit tools improved, filters and modifications also made the art of photography more accessible, easier to use, cheaper, and more efficient.

There was a brief social outcry about all the developer booths that would disappear, the jobs that would be lost, the film studios that would go out of business, and all the professional photographers who would supposedly be pushed out of work by these new tools that made photographers out of everyone with a phone. People wouldn’t have to pay to learn, pay a professional to take images, or pay for marketing shots—they could do it themselves for cheap or free. Digital tools, presets, pre-made filters, and in-app modification functions made it possible for anyone with a smartphone to cut out multiple middlemen, services, and costs to get the image they wanted.

Legacy film companies filed for bankruptcy, unable to change with the times fast enough. Servicing a 35mm now can be a challenge because there are fewer shops with people who know how to repair or clean analog cameras properly.

Is the 35mm craft dead? No. I still see people with old cameras often, but it’s a costly hobby to learn and maintain. Do I still love film? Absolutely. While it’s harder now to tell the difference between a 35mm image and a digital image, there are still quality print differences. And storage longevity for film is entirely different.

But back to my friend who got her first digital camera and couldn’t think of herself as a “real photographer.” I think my answer was something along the lines of: You are still the one pointing the camera. You are still the one taking the shot. If you’re using filters or post-image tools, you are still the one making those decisions and shaping the photo to your creative vision. Your art is not defined by how others think art should be. It’s defined by your process.

What I hope she took from it was what I took from my father’s teachings about photography—the art of writing with light.

Making art happens between your heartbeats.

It’s the choice, or series of choices, that defines your intent and vision. The tool is only a tool. According to my father, that tool could be a Kodak, a Pentax, or a loaded gun. The machinery and objects, the light and the aperture, are all subject to the decisions you capture in the shutter click. Art to other people is what they personally take or feel from the experience. Art is two-sided: the creator and the experiencer.

Dad and I had a lot of long, rambling existential conversations about that topic over the decades. Sometimes we’d start a conversation about it, then it would drop off and pick up five years later when we both had more lived experience to bring to it. As life and art often do.

Art will persist somehow, some way. Inspiration cannot be stopped. It’s the viral spread of emotional need—to create, to make, to express. Inspiration does not care if it has a platform or followers. It simply must be. Art doesn’t care whether the image is digital or film, ink or written in blood.

The creator cares. The experiencer cares.
​
That caring is the space between heartbeats.

You can learn more about my father, Craig, and the W.C. Nielson Heritage Program at Elder Glade Publishing. 

The last year has been a tragic pile of shit for many Americans, immigrants, and humanity in general. With failures of leadership on epic, stunning display from the top down in every sector—it’s obvious the United States has lost respectability on a global scale, as well as any actual and perceived power we imagined we possessed. The US government has also lost the respect of its own populace, which was tenuous and limited to begin with.

There’s a lot of humanitarian tragedy to grieve. There’s a lot of injustice to rage against. There’s a lot of cleanup and rebuilding that needs to happen—but cannot be accomplished until a dozer is taken to the rotten core and the corrupt are toppled from their perches.

Vote. Flip your seats. Call your representatives. Send letters. March. Yes, these are all powerful tools and they help. Cancel any services or accounts that support the regime. Delete any platforms that use your human data and capital to validate their agendas. Every little bit helps.
​
There is also another thing you can do. You can create. You can build. People might ask why I haven’t been my usual loud-mouthed-I-told-you-so-self on social platforms… it’s because I’ve been building something. 

Artists and innovators have always been the North Star of our social evolution. Sure, religions and belief systems have been instrumental—but who designed those basilicas? Who painted those murals? Who decorated those houses of worship in the name of love, but also under the influence of INSPIRATION. Who wrote the hymnals, the literature for study, and built the instruments of congregation? Artists were/are the carriers of ideas, the cartographers of how human energy flows along belief channels. Don’t believe me? The art and inspirational works of nearly every system of divinity worship have been articulated through artistry in a form of “influencer power.” The power of inspiration creates iconography, builds masterpieces, sparks human development into new territory.

Creativity and Inspiration are double-edged swords, they destroy AND they create. Sometimes with the same ink stroke. The artist is the one who decides which it will be, this has always been the case.

A poorly designed chapel seats no congregation. An uninspired mural attracts no worship. A faulty innovation prohibits scientific advancement.

But an inspiring performance by a competent symphony can enlist an army of newly awakened righteous believers. A human is capable of being paralyzed by Scheherazade’s solo, heart strings melted by the violinist’s mastery. That human can never be what they were before hearing that piece for the first time. They are forever altered.
​
Religions have always known this, which is why they enlist artists for their community cohesion and inspirational storytelling and centuries old marketing campaigns of massive amounts of artistic output to solidify—even codify their belief system into an institutional power. Artists are often inspired by religion so it’s not a difficult creation process for them anyway. Would-be dictators have always known, the media is the influence, the story is malleable. This is why they take over media outlets, write their own narratives, and steal art from the oppressed. They also know that coopting the power of art, the momentum of inspiration from creatives will move their causes forward faster, with more authority and certainty. 

Creators have always been the vehicles of belief systems, of inspiration, of innovative breakthroughs in social structure, law, commerce, technology, mathematics, sciences, and yes, obviously the fine arts. They are all the same inspirational power of human creative ingenuity. I’ve been writing about this with the Muses for years.

We are at a social tipping point in our country’s journey. We’ll never be what we were before, and that’s actually a painfully earned, beautiful gift. The truth that we are now free to re-design, re-think, re-imagine the way we wish to move forward is a Franken-result of what has been taken without permission, without consent. It absolutely sucks, and you should feel free to grieve it.

But creators are resilient. And we are all creators, every one of us. We are creatives who’ve been buried under the weight of collective horror for too long. Trapped in deals with devils for too long. Forced to collaborate with unfit entities for too long.

So here we are; all the gloves removed, all the stop gaps, the perceptions, the “nice” and “cooperative” consents and rule of law are being torched, along with enshrined constitutional protections.

This leaves what, exactly? Fear? Terror? Uncertainty? All those things designed to freeze innovation, to block creativity and put people into a place of survival? Indeed. A place of easy control and compliance.

So—beat them at their own game. Cut the hamstrings of their global takeover agenda. Create. Inspire. Innovate. Build. Use their tools against them if you must. How, you ask?

By connecting with your own creative inspiration. Make art. Build systems. Design processes. Test theories and move through new scientific breakthroughs. Tune your cello and get back to practice. Support a local theater group. Buy coffee from a non-brand mom and pop. Author your books.

Getting back to writing is the whole point of the slow winter. I’ve decided to take on a couple of memoir projects this year. I’m also digging back into the Tangle of Mermaids manuscript once the rain begins. There’s just something about the rain and winter that sets the writing mood to cruise control.

There’s a small gap between now and then where I’m trying to get settled into the season; stocking my wood pile, prepping my writing space, filling the coffee cabinet, etc.

In the meantime, much of my focus has been on ‘Seasons; A Family Recipe Journal’, and ‘Heart of the Forest; A Gratitude Workbook’. Getting those two projects on the shelf then moving into deeper creative waters to dig into the novels… and a couple of very heartfelt, human-focused ghostwriting projects.

I haven’t blown Hollywood off, it’s just, I need a break from it. Maybe by Spring I’ll be open to adaptations discussions again. I keep putting off emails and taking space from meetings. Not ready to go back into that just yet. There’s a lot to be said about watching what’s been happening there as the world is melting down, the entertainment industry is fracturing in odd ways. Let it. It will become whatever it’s going to be.
​
In the meantime, there are novels to write. There is mulled wine on the stove and piles of mundane contracts to review. May your creative season begin with a whisper and end with a bang. 

I’ve been feeling the need to revisit some gratitude exercises recently. Back to the basics, as it were. When I spoke with various people about their current mindsets, emotional burnout, and general overload it became apparent as I talked with them about my plans to dig into a few abundance and gratitude prompts that they were, as I am, TIRED. Exhausted. Overloaded. Under water. So, I made this workbook simple… overly so. Easy. Full of images and color. Simple prompts, easy to complete. Childlike in its playfulness.

If you are not feeling yourself. If you feel like life is kickin’ your ass at the moment. If you’re tired of focusing on the struggle bus… take a quick easy peasy soft and squeezy pretty little gratitude workbook and set aside a few minutes to remind yourself when things felt good—then call those times back into your experience.

Only available on Amazon at the moment.
​
Cherish your blessings. 

My fallow year started last winter into early spring. I didn’t realize what was happening at the time because burnout was still creeping up like a sneaky bitch and I was fixated on wrapping up my last contract discussions in Hollywood while planning next steps. Also, the world was on fire and my country began its grim decline into fascism—so I was distracted, as many were.

When my fallow season hit, I was totally unprepared to be knocked off my feet. It shouldn’t have surprised me. I know well that we cannot be in full bloom, a riotous profusion of output energy at all times indefinitely. There must also be a harvest. There must also be a dormancy to regenerate.
There is always a reset.

We live in a world that extolls the virtues of busy work, productivity and success. We don’t talk about the dormant periods required to maintain healthy individual seasons.

Ironically, though I wasn’t prepared for it, I am finding myself leaning into it with relief and gratitude as it has been long overdue.

Prior to getting involved with the Hollywood machinery, and before I was running a consulting firm—I used every winter to reboot, rest, read, create, write and hum along at a slower, more thoughtful and deeply feeling speed. I charged my batteries. I wrote a novel each winter. I sculpted, cooked, and puttered in my studio. Come spring I always emerged charged and ready to build, brimming with energy and creative projects ready for market.

Four years ago that all changed. My hibernation and regeneration window was co-opted by necessary business developments, emergency client meetings, “progress”, and growth.

​I don’t lament it at all. It was entirely necessary and I’m grateful I had the chance to build as much as I was able and put out the volume of content for Hollywood and my consulting clients that I did. But my friends and community worried out loud, “How long can you keep up this pace?”

There was ultimately a cost. Sometimes it was weeks on end of 120-hour weeks. Some weeks I worked from bed because I was also battling health issues stemming from the crush of deadlines and pressure. I was constantly in a battle to deliver on promises despite the fact so many contract providers failed their terms to me or didn’t show up—so I was picking up a lot of slack and continuing on to make those deliverables to customers and executives.

The important part was that I kept showing up, meeting all my obligations.

But my house was in disarray, the garden was rotting on the vine, and my finances were collapsing. The to-do list was stacking up. I was slowly drowning and the people who could help opted out.
I simply couldn’t do it all, or do it alone—and I was burning at every end to make it work.

It was always going to fall short, there simply wasn’t enough resource to go all the way in all the departments. There was neither enough bandwidth or money. There was not enough buy-in from the people who had the power to make the decisions—and I was the one holding the bag.

Early this year as the United States began its decline from first world country to backwater joke, I decided it was too much to try to push through all that noise and still hold onto all the reins all the time. For every step I made last year, each time I moved in ANY direction—someone or something else blazed in to knock that pathway out from under my feet. Each decision, each plan sabotaged by industry professionals, fickle minds and relationships, fragile egos, poor administrative decisions and executive orders, and even natural disasters.

I stopped being able to trust that any choice I made or step I took wouldn’t be interfered with, intentionally or unintentionally.

I couldn’t keep up with the chaos in all directions, so I began the process of closing down my consulting firm, and wrangling my energies toward writing and creativity. My house and property were teetering on foreclosure. I was losing contracts to the chaos of poor government leadership anyway. Companies feared hiring me because they didn’t know what other bullshit trainwreck decision the administration was going to make that would impact their bottom line and they didn’t want to be locked in a contract with me that they couldn’t fulfill. Both in consulting and in publishing and entertainment. The grant I was headed for was also cancelled before I could use it to stabilize my consulting firm. Money just dried up everywhere as panic set into both of the industries I was working in.

It was looking pretty bleak, not just for me, but for millions of other B2B providers.

I have not had a winter in four years and it shows. I look and feel rundown. My body shows the wear and tear, and my spirit feels it. My home is a mess and that is reflected in my appearance. The land has gone wild. Yes, I’m still in the woods. Yes, I’m still on my land for now. I have just enough energy and resources to tuck in and sustain a full hibernation cycle to close out that last bit of transformation and reset.

Don’t worry. There is a plan. I am not crawling in a hole to give up. I am simply acknowledging the much-needed personal season of my human psyche and physical form. This is self-care in the most necessary way. Four years without a hibernation has been costly in nearly every facet of my life.

I’ll get into the value of a fallow year later, but for now. Please be assured, I’m well. I’m provided for and the current plan is to not produce or be productive or build until the seed within begins to unfurl. Then, the new plan will go live. In the meantime, I’ll be sharing on my website what I do to regenerate. I will not be posting on a schedule or following pressure to produce. I will only be posting as I’m energized to do so, and sharing my process to re-invigorate, re-inspired, re-home myself in order to refurbish my creative fields and forests and prepare for a new spring. Follow along if you wish.

​I wish you a peaceful autumn.
 

Back at the blogging. Probably irregularly.

Four years ago I started into a Hollywood adaptation adventure with my novels. During that time I made a bargain not to be, how should I say, too much of my vocal self while deals were being discussed regarding my works. As in toning down the political and spiritual statements that could often be found on my blogs. I kept trying to blog a little here or there but without any meaty substance, there just wasn’t much to truly say. Sort of sums up Hollywood in general.

After rerouting my page a few times and closing up old posts, I was a very good girl. But my planning is shifting, and the world is burning. Time to fire up the old yammer as I’ve got plenty to say about the state of the world, the entertainment industry, and about creativity. Specifically, the very desperate need we have of creativity and human story it at this moment in time, soon to be history. And we will need to decide which side of that history we wish to be on as creators, storytellers, and individuals.

Plugging back in, I also realize so much of what I was prior to four years ago is not really on point with what is happening. So, my old posts are archived for later and a fresh slate is being laid out.
This last year has been one of the hardest years of my life (just one), which I’ll get to eventually, but for now it’s to say that I don’t for a second think I’m the only one who took it in the teeth. I’m probably in very good company with other folks experiencing loss, perceived failure, breakdowns, and a good hard look at the bottom of the proverbial barrel. Transformation does not often come without the discomfort of hard choices and a string of losses.

It’s humbling. It’s also, forgive me for saying, a relief. Maybe it doesn’t feel like it in the moment, but there will be a sense of release.

There’s relief in knowing the direction you need to take, and then watching everything in your life collapse that you’ve been struggling to uphold which no longer serves the right goal or purpose. There’s freedom in starting over with fewer encumbrances. Keep what works, let go of the rest. Breathe. Reboot. Aim for the goal.

Easier said then done, I’ll admit. There’s a lot of crying. There are several trips to Goodwill. There are a lot of relationship closures, and a sense of losing community. There are those moments when you’re vacillating between the decisions—and in a blink you just know. You know what needs to be done and everything afterward becomes crystalline. It will only be as difficult as you believe it’s going to be.

So I closed down my consulting firm, and I’ve redirected my energy fully back to publishing. The world doesn’t need more financial auditors. It doesn’t need more business developers with project management and fiscal planning backgrounds. What it really needs right now. What I need right now is story. Humane mapping. Connection to the most noble and honorable, the most loving and supportive parts of my species. I’m not going to find that auditing conglomerate loan packages, or helping businesses sort out their staffing issues.

I need story. I need to get back to my books and worlds. And if I need it, there’s a good chance others need it as well. So here I am, reconfiguring my life to accommodate this shift.

It might look messy, but that’s all part of chewing your way out of any tangle.

Anywhoo, here we go to kicking off a fresh reboot. I’m in the take a breath, evaluate and plan phase. Sitting in some life rubble at the moment, but that will clear up eventually.
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In the meantime, welcome to my little forest corner of musings.