I had a breakthrough with my memoir, Pilgrimage of Desire.

I was at my Thursday night Just Write meetup as usual. I wasn’t looking forward to working on the book. Ever since I picked it up again in February, writing sessions have ranged from discouraging to excruciating. In three months, I have managed to do the following:

1. Read through the manuscript (and become convinced that the whole thing is awful).
2. Read some journal entries from our time in Malaysia (heartsick with missing it).
3. Do some exercises from Cate’s Re-Entry Reality book.
4. Freewrite some random crap.
5. Post a blog article (You Can’t Bake a Cake Without a Cake Pan).
6. Write ONE paragraph.

The manuscript has been like a solid sheet of ice, cold and unyielding. I bloodied my fingernails trying to prize in that one paragraph. I tormented myself with thoughts that the book would never open to me again, that I would have to walk away leaving it half-formed.

Then last week, as I re-read Chapter 10 yet again, my heart was warmed with love for the words, for the person I’d been when I lived and wrote those scenes. They were good. I wanted to add to them. I tested the ice with my foot, and just like that it gave way, breaking apart to lively water underneath. I inserted a sentence. I reshaped a paragraph from my journal and placed it in. A new paragraph appeared, spontaneous and playful.

I was writing!

After 90 minutes, I had 997 new words in Chapter 10. Relief? Enormous. Suddenly I could imagine working on the book in the mornings, finishing a few chapters on a writing retreat. Pilgrimage had let me in again.

This experience reminded me of resistance. Because the difference between the book one week and the next was so palpable. To change analogies, it was as though an electric fence around the text, buzzing and menacing, had suddenly been switched off. I thought about how Steven Pressfield describes Resistance as a force field, repelling you away from the work.

I do believe that resistance is real, even though I disagree with a lot of advice for dealing with it.

Forcing yourself to work, citing discipline and “turning pro,” seems to me as foolish as crossing a live electric fence.

Yes, you might make it, but what damage will the voltage do? Wouldn’t it be better to cut the power first and cross over unharmed?

Before this great writing session, I read a post from Anne Lamott about the excuses people give for not writing, and how they’re “a total crock. There will never be a good time to write. It will never be easier. If you won’t find an hour a day now, you won’t find it them.”

The answer, Anne says, is just to decide to write.

I know there are people who need to hear her message, but I also know I’m not one of them. The reason I hadn’t been writing for an hour a day was because the electric fence was still humming. Pilgrimage was telling me she wasn’t ready yet, and I wasn’t ready. Maybe this sounds like an excuse, but I humbly suggest that my weekly Meetup appointments with her attest to the fact that I was not giving up, even while not hurling myself uselessly at that high-voltage fence every day. When I couldn’t write, I found safe things to do around the perimeter.

So why did the electric fence around Pilgrimage suddenly go off?

I don’t know exactly why, but I have a few guesses.

• Because the spring weather and the flowers have been glorious.
• Because I’ve been working with my coach on how to re-engage with the book.
• Because I wrote Pilgrimage a love letter back in March.
• Because I read a Facebook post from Danielle LaPorte that said, “Enjoy your sadness. It won’t last long.”
• Because I said a channeling prayer beforehand.
• Because I’ve been biking.
• Because I have proven my faithfulness every Thursday.
• Because I published an update about how things are going.
• Because enough time has passed.

This is just a theory, but I think that the current running through an electric fence is emotion. Mine was charged with grief, disappointment, nostalgia, and shame. A potent mix. Faced with all that emotion, it’s not enough just to say, “Write even when you don’t feel like it.” The emotion must be acknowledged and worked through. You can’t think or act your way around it.

The line between waiting and making excuses is a fine one, to be sure. But I trust myself to know which side I’m on.

I trust that I am not lazy. I trust my writing intentions. I trust my instinct that forcing would be harmful.

So, to answer my question in the headline.

When do you make a creative push and when do you wait?

You ask yourself.

Will pushing feel like healthy exertion or like being electrocuted?

Will waiting feel like patient presence or like evasion?

Then you pick the one that feels respectful of the work and of your writing desires. You don’t listen to the people saying “Real writers write every day,” or “Writing will never get easier.”

If you’re waiting, you make a regular appointment with your work and you keep testing the fence. Is it still on? What’s powering it? Is the voltage weakening? Do you want to look for the off switch?

And if you decide to push, you begin carefully, warming up and building slowly. You check in to make sure the pushing isn’t damaging you or the work.

Trust that you are not lazy. Trust your creative intentions. Trust your instincts about pushing or waiting. 

And keep showing up.

Here’s the love letter I wrote to Pilgrimage. You can see it’s pretty emotional. I still feel strongly about her, but now it’s more like an electric blanket than an electric fence.

Dearest,

I love you and I miss you. I’m sorry that I’ve dealt with my painful feelings about you by ignoring you. That’s not fair to you, and it doesn’t help me in the long run either. We’ve had outside things keeping us apart ~ the summer busyness and our move and my illness and the other book ~ but I’ve also kept myself away from you because I didn’t want to know how much love or fear was there. But we both deserve better than that.

You deserve to shine in your fullness, to have your beautiful pages turned, to catch people’s tears and laughter, to see their epiphanies. You are worth any money. And I deserve to have you move through me, in all your pain and truth and delight. I deserve to deliver you to the world. Apologies for the melodrama, but you bring out the depths of me. No creative work has ever asked for more of me (although I know there will be others in the future). But the fact that you scour me out tells me that this is important work we’re doing together.

I do believe that the time we’ve spent apart will make you stronger and better. Your joy will be cut with bittersweet. You are more dimensional, and I am wiser in the way of cycles.

You make me want to be a better woman. More courageous, more self-caring, more in integrity. If no one else is touched by a sentence of you, you have been my teacher. My labyrinth. My mirror. You are worth the sacrifice, because you pay back a hundredfold.

Dearest, let’s begin again. I’ll be gentle. I won’t try to force myself back into your graces, I’ll approach deferentially, and we’ll find our rhythm again. I never could force you to come to me; you deserve to be courted. “You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you,” to quote Mr. Darcy.

“Curiosity does, no less than devotion, pilgrims make.” — Abraham Cowley

Let us continue this pilgrimage of desire. I am ready to be broken open again.

A. xoxo

Tell me. Have you pushed? Have you waited? How do you decide which to do when?

Photo Credit: Randy Son Of Robert via Compfight cc

Sidewalk labyrinth in our new neighbourhood of Kitsilano

In January, I felt like mush. 

Like I was rebuilding everything I knew about myself and my life. I went to a retreat with Jen Louden on Bainbridge Island, and when she asked us to choose a new name for ourselves, I picked Stardust. It spoke to me of the elemental, the unformed, the diffuse. Jen’s teaching encouraged me to go back to my long-ago study of the feminine journey, and I realized that I was not back at the beginning as I had thought. Rather, I was entering my third act.

I needed to gather support.

I was in the process of ghostwriting a book for a client, and I needed a nurturing environment to do that. I was finding it hard to get things done at home ~ I felt lonely, and it was too easy to waste time or do housework.

So I researched co-working offices and arranged to visit three downtown. This endeavour gave me some excitement and a sense of purpose. I also met with a guy, Mitchell, who was starting a co-working office in my neighbourhood. We discovered that we lived basically on the same block in Kitsilano! I thought he was a really sweet, terrific guy and I hoped he actually got his enterprise off the ground.

I also searched on Meetup.com and found a group that was like coffee-shop co-working for writers. It’s called Just Write Vancouver, and it has weekly meetings all over the city where people gather with their laptops and notebooks and just write. I started a Kitsilano group on Thursday nights, and there I met great writers who were all dedicated to their projects and their writing time.

Finally, in February, I finished the ghostwritten book! 

Some of my most productive sessions were at Just Write meetups or on my coworking days. And slowly I started getting back to work on Pilgrimage of Desire. I thought I would work on it full time, or at least a few days a week, but . . .

Alright, let me tell you about my work life. For seven years, I worked full-time as a tech writer for a software company. Then I quit in 2005 and did freelance technical writing and editing. I started my creativity coaching practice in 2010, but I still took writing contracts as I was building my business.

Between kids, travel, writing, and contracting, I haven’t made the time to build coaching into a full-time income. Many wonderful things have come of my foray into entrepreneurship:

• I have worked with amazing writers and artists, and I have been privileged to accompany them on a leg of their journey to wholeness and flow.
• I have expanded my professional network and made new friends.
• I have learned sales, marketing, and copywriting.
• I’m really proud of what I’ve written for my blog at www.gresik.ca.
• Training as a coach and then articulating my philosophy of the art-committed life has loosened and strengthened my own artistic practice so much. I am a much more prolific, more inspired, more relaxed, more confident writer than I was three years ago.

As wonderful as these results are, they have not been accompanied by a big cash flow. Which I’m okay with. My life is still unfolding, and I know that nothing is wasted. I do believe I could build a viable coaching practice if I made it my priority and put the required labour into it.

But I know that coaching is not my first love. Writing is.

I pursued coaching in the first place because I wanted to make my living doing meaningful work. Tech writing felt hollow. It sucked the life out of me. I was good at it but it didn’t feed me.

With coaching, I had part of the equation. Meaningful work, check. Making my living, not so much. So I continued to take contracts. Then, a year ago, I got a different kind of client. He wanted to write a book to help people live more meaningful lives and make the world a better place. He hired me to do that for him, and you know what? Writing that book was easy. Not in the sense that I didn’t exert myself, but in the sense that I knew what to do ~ I had all the skills and knowledge I needed, and I brought them to bear with persistence and confidence.

So here I am in Vancouver, a very expensive city.

My kids are in daycare and gymnastics and art lessons. We started skiing, because how can you not ski when you live 20 minutes from a mountain? All that stuff we sold two years ago? We had to buy a whole bunch of it again (mostly secondhand, hooray for Craigslist!). We need two incomes at the moment. So I’m working full-time for the first time since we had kids six years ago.

Mitchell came through and I joined his new co-working office, Suite Genius. Every morning by 9 am I bike over with my laptop on my back. I work and work and work ~ copywriting, creating content strategy, and overseeing my client’s publishing and launch process. I have blocked all the naughty stuff I use to procrastinate (Metafilter and Boingboing and Facebook) using Chrome Nanny. I log my billable hours in FreshBooks ~ five hours in a day is a good day. Then I bike home and pick up the kids from their afterschool program. Throw some dinner together. Put a load of laundry in. Maybe watch an episode of Mad Men with Shawn and fall asleep.

Dude. Working full-time is hard!

The memories are all coming back to me.

• So tired.
• So behind on my email. I answer the urgent stuff and the rest just piles up alongside my guilt.
• So squeezed. Like everything must happen back-to-back with no space to breathe.
• So sad about not working on my memoir.

Thank goodness for my Thursday night writer’s meetup. It’s my guarantee that I’ll work on my book for at least three hours every week. I’m here now, writing this. At my last session, it took all night to write one new paragraph, the first one I’ve written since last September.

Tonight I was handwriting in my notebook, dredging up memories of working for that software company.

And I’m realizing I’m back in that place. In some ways. Not all ways, because the work I’m doing now feels meaningful and interesting and fun. But in the way of being tired and overwhelmed a lot of the time. And in the way of feeling swamped and always having 20 good reasons not to write.

And I’ve been thinking about you all. 

You are thousands of writers and artists from around the world who visit this site so I can talk to you. Be of service to you. Remind you you’re not alone.

For months I haven’t been able to blog because I didn’t know what the hell was going on with me or my business. I was sick and barely keeping my head above water. I had very little creative energy.

But I can feel my mojo coming back. The surge of inspiration that led to this letter. The craving to write that is no longer being sated by working on my client’s book. The way forward is coming into focus, the way I will re-create my art-committed life in this new place, under new conditions.

I am gathering support for my third act. 

That support takes the form of people, places, and systems that act as the cake pan for my gooey batter-y stardust self. Labyrinths that channel my creative energy in the meandering but relentless path toward the centre.

So that’s what I’d like to share with you, and that’s what I’d like to hear back from you. I don’t have all the answers; I’m still learning what works. But I am hopeful. And I am better with company.

Here’s today’s step forward.

Would you come to my Facebook page and tell me what your centre is right now? What is the touchstone creative project that compels you to keep moving toward an art-committed life? What’s the vision that won’t let you go, that dogs you day and night waiting for you to make it real?

Mine is Pilgrimage of Desire, of course. I’d love to hear about yours.

In love and solidarity,

P.S. Oh! I should tell you that I’m still coaching. I even have a Vancouver client who comes to my co-working office for sessions! You’re always welcome to book a free intro session with me if you’re interested in focused, personal support in designing your art-committed life.

Many of us writers and artists are in the position of needing to stir up some buzz around our books and creations.

• We’ve published with a small press that gave us $75 for wine at the book launch and said “You’re on your own.”
• We’ve opened an online store that needs more customers.
• We’ve launched a literary magazine and are trying to get the word out.

With all the fuss about online marketing and social media these days, it can be easy to overlook a tried-and-true source of exposure: public relations (PR).

Brigitte Lyons is running a course called Your Media Map: The inside guide to getting the coverage you deserve starting in February 2013, which is just the thing for writers and artists who want more people to know about them.

Brigitte is offering training bonuses, including a free call, for those who sign up on her Media Map interest list, so do that if you’re at all, ah, interested!

I was privileged to take an earlier version of Brigitte’s course last May. I knew that doing PR would be an important skill for releasing Pilgrimage of Desire, my travel memoir. And the way Brigitte writes and teaches is right up my alley: high-quality information pared down to the essentials, lots of personality and stories to keep things interesting, clear and useful assignments, and a great group of enthusiastic classmates.

And here’s Brigitte in her own words to tell you why PR is a great opportunity for creators like us.

Alison: I find that the issue of marketing and publicity for artists ~ and particularly writers ~ is a touchy one, because there’s this sense that “I wrote the book, why should I have to sell it? I’ve done my job, now the publisher/publicist should do his/hers.”

In some ways it’s a holdover from days gone by when authors didn’t need to do more than show up and do the interviews and readings that were arranged for them, but that world is disappearing. I think it’s especially difficult for mid-career writers who didn’t start off with blogs and social media, and who are now getting thrown into the deep end.

So I wonder, what do you say to artists and writers who are feeling resistant or a little cranky about having to do their own publicity? 

Brigitte: I can relate to the frustration ~ it seems as though everyone’s primary job is to be a marketer. In the book To Sell is Human, Dan Pink even goes so far as to say, “We’re all in sales now.”

While this can feel like a burden, I always encourage my clients to look at the opportunity in the new marketplace. Not too long ago, you weren’t expected to promote your own books, but you also lacked the opportunity to ensure your stories reached the right readers. If your publisher didn’t throw their weight behind you (which only benefitted the flagship writers for the publishing house), that was it. You couldn’t make your own fame or fortune.

That’s all changed. You can create a direct line to readers and thought-leaders. You aren’t subject to the whims and budget considerations of a publishing house any longer.

Alison: Another issue I see is that artists and writers are uncomfortable thinking of themselves as a brand, and they want to keep all of the focus on their work. Or they don’t like having to apply labels or genres to their work; they don’t want to put it into a box. And yet the audience needs to be able to quickly and easily see whether a book or creation is something they’d like or not.

How can artists and writers make peace with the need to communicate clearly about their work without undermining its nuance or uniqueness?

Brigitte: This is a challenge for every creator ~ how do you distill an idea that looms so large into two or three talking points? A lot of artists and writers get stuck on the notion they need to project this perfectly packaged brand, and it prevents them from moving forward. I’d rather people get out of their own way, and if that means that you go to the public without the illusive and fictitious unicorn that is perfect branding, that’s okay.

Ultimately, your brand is your core message. Whether you paint or write or sculpt, there’s an emotion you want to explore or a conflict waiting to unfold. That’s what you need to communicate. The rest is just details.

Alison: Self-publishing is also creating waves in that a lot of authors come out of the gate very aggressively with publicity. Sometimes there seems to be more effort put into promotion than into the creation of the book itself. So it comes across as all hype and no substance. And I think literary writers are worried that that impression is going to rub off on them ~ that if they’re too loud, people will assume their books aren’t any good. (We just secretly long for great books to sell themselves, and it seems very unjust when they don’t.)

Is there a classy way to do PR that won’t look like we’re trying too hard or overcompensating for less-than-great work?

Brigitte: PR is the way out of this conundrum, because it’s all about helping other people tell your story. Rather than writing a dozen blog posts about yourself, you send review copies to people your readers or buyers respect, and let these influencers tell your story. Or, you contact a popular podcast about doing an interview, and they draw out the highlights of your release.

You may have to pitch yourself behind the scenes (and there are ways to do it without feeling gross), but in the public’s eye, you don’t look like you’re grasping for attention. You retain the opportunity to be humble, or even private, about your work.

Alison: Many of us in the art and literary world are coming to PR with no background, just a need to figure it out. And the old, obvious places to start, like book review sections of newspapers, are going the way of the dodo.

What approach do you teach for finding traditional and new media outlets that can create publicity for writers and artists in the current climate? How do we look for opportunities to pitch?

Brigitte: I’ll give you one tip that you can implement in 2 minutes. Set up a Google alert for another writer or artist who’s already out there. The news outlets and blogs that feature your peers are going to be very interested in hearing from you.

Also, as an artist, I imagine you are also an art consumer. Where do you look for fresh perspectives? This is a great place to start, because you can approach the editors or reporters with genuine enthusiasm for their product.

Alison: We already have so much to learn ~ we’re trying to read widely and look at a lot of art, find the time to improve our craft and get finished work out there, find representation.

Is it really worth taking the time and money to figure out media marketing too? Will developing this skill serve us even when we do make it and have a professional publisher or distributor behind us?

Brigitte: It’s worth taking the time to find your right approach, which is the magic place where your personality matches up with the preferences of your audience. Not everyone has to blog or Tweet or even do media interviews. If you put in a little effort up front to understand what your audience wants and which strategies work for you, then you’ll save yourself a lot of pain down the road.

PR is a good approach for you if you don’t want to constantly struggle with your outreach, because it’s all about targeted outreach to the right people. Why haul the boulder uphill, when you can use PR as the lever to give your message momentum?

Brigitte Lyons is a media strategist for independent businesses and artists, who has helped clients get coverage in media outlets as diverse as CNN, Daily Candy, Entrepreneur magazine, The Wall Street Journal and Design*Sponge. She dishes free PR tips and is the creator of Your Media Map – an 8-week course that systematically eliminates the barriers to getting the PR coverage you deserve.

Full disclosure: Brigitte has given me lifetime access to the program as an early beta-tester for her material. What with all the personal goings-on, I haven’t had a chance to implement what I learned the first time around, so I’m excited to do this expanded version of the course and create a media strategy for the release of Pilgrimage of Desire.

P.S. Get on the Media Map interest list to access free training bonuses from Tara Gentile, Tara Sophia Mohr, and Megan Auman. Good stuff!

I don’t usually do memes. The quiet rebel in me doesn’t like doing the same thing that everyone else is doing, answering the same questions and trying to be witty and original while doing it.

But then two writers who I like very much, Lilian Nattel and Brent Van Staalduinen, both asked whether they could tag me for the Next Big Thing meme. And since I’ve hardly blogged at all since our move to Vancouver, the least I can do is tell you a little about what I’m working on.

I can’t talk about the book I’m ghostwriting, and you’ve heard all about Pilgrimage of Desire (which has been delayed due to the move and the ghostwriting), so instead I will tell you about the middle grade novel I started aeons ago and am hoping to rewrite this year, the muse willing.

What is your working title of your book?
Things I’d Rather Do Than Go to School
Previous “non-working” titles include Elementary, Night School, Jump Before You Fall, and Schooled (which I discovered is the title of a Gordon Korman book).

Where did the idea come from for the book?
I was homeschooled for three years (Grades Six, Seven, and Eight, thank goodness) and back in 2001 I wanted to write about that experience and culture. At that point there weren’t many treatments of homeschooling in fiction, and they were mostly stereotypes and plot devices.

After I finished grad school and wrote a few short stories, I conceived of an epic book following four different homeschooling families, with multiple point-of-view characters (inspired by one of my favorite novels of all time, Horse Heaven by Jane Smiley). I did a bunch of literary and historical research, mapped out some plot lines, and started writing the story of Jerome, a ten-year-old boy who gets bullied at school. Before I got too far into it, I was diagnosed with depression and stopped writing for a while.

I came back to the story in 2004 and wrote a full draft for NaNoWriMo, alternating between Jerome and his mother as narrators. I was still thinking of the book as an adult literary novel, but at some point after I finished it (and started working on other books), I realized that I wanted to re-do it as a children’s book and add a fantasy element to it.

Note: Part of the reason that homeschooling is not a more common topic in fiction must surely be that it’s an inherently boring scenario with little built-in conflict. Books like Schooled by Gordon Korman, Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli, and Ida B. by Katherine Hannigan are about homeschooled kids going back into the school system, which is more interesting. The best true homeschool book I’ve read is Word Nerd by Susin Nielsen.

In 2009 I started over and wrote a new version of the book as a middle grade fantasy novel. That was the most fun I’ve ever had writing fiction. I did two edits in 2010 and submitted queries to a few agents, but the verdict seemed to be that the book wasn’t good enough yet ~ the writing was strong but I needed better structure. In 2011 I had the book edited by the fabulous Kelley Eskridge, and I look forward to rewriting it again once these other projects are off my plate.

What genre does your book fall under?
Children’s fantasy

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
I could see a ten-year-old Henry Thomas playing Jerome (he was Elliot in E.T.). Or a young Nicholas Hoult ~ I loved him in About a Boy.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
A homeschooled boy gets bullied in his nightmares.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
I plan to look for an agent once the book is revised. I think traditional publishing is still the way to go for most children’s books, for now. This is the genre I’d like to build my writing career in.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
Ha! I’m not sure what counts as the first draft. There were two alpha drafts, each written in about a month, and then the first draft of the manuscript’s current incarnation took me about six months. It’s around 40,000 words right now, but needs to be cut by a third or more.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
I’ve mentioned other homeschooling books; as for fantasy, I’d probably compare my book to something like When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead, i.e. mostly realism with a little fantasy thrown in. No dragons or magic!

Who or what inspired you to write this book?
This book was inspired by and will be dedicated to my brother, Ben.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
The girl in this video reminds me so much of how I envision Jerome, who is also into extreme sports.

I’m not going to tag any other authors in this meme, but I will link to some of my current favourite blogs by writers:

Carrie Snyder of Obscure Can Lit Mama
Torre DeRoche of Fearful Adventurer
Oriah Mountain Dreamer of The Green Bough
Nova Ren Suma of Distraction No. 99
Justine Musk ~ Because you’re a creative badass
Glennon Melton of Momastery

“We are here to build the house.
It’s our work, our job, the most important gig of all: to make a place that belongs to us, a structure composed of our own moral code.”
~ Cheryl Strayed in Tiny Beautiful Things

I haven’t posted here in over three months. That’s what it’s been like to move to Vancouver: busy, disorienting, silencing.

So much is happening. But every time I try to write, here or on social media, even in my journal, I find myself stopped, the words smothered. I can’t even see inside myself ~ the view is smoky and obscured.

Coming to a new city has been hard, but not for the reasons I expected. I was worried about logistics and forgot about the enormous identity shift I’d be navigating. I thought Vancouver would feel like a continuation of our travel lifestyle of the last year, the only difference being that we are staying a little longer.

But in fact, it’s a very different lifestyle. And I am a different person. Again.

I am a mother who is once more on the front-line at home. After fifteen months with Shawn taking the lead on childcare, getting groceries and cooking when I had work to do, I am back to high domestic overhead. I am doing dentist appointments and 3 pm school pickups and play-dates and “Mom, are you coming to my Halloween party?” I am buying toilet brushes and making muffins and knitting mittens. I miss eating out and having my bathrooms cleaned.

I am a person who has had a respiratory infection for over two months. Which is ironic, in light of the illness I had when we first moved to Malaysia. I have not figured out what it means; I just want it to go away. I take antibiotics and get chest x-rays and use an inhaler. I cough a lot. I have good days and relapses. I annoy people at the coffee shop (one of them gave me a card for her acupuncturist ~ so West Coast). I have stopped waiting for my lungs to clear.

I am a writer who has put her personal creative projects on hold while she does work for pay. The move and the illness put me woefully behind on a book I am ghostwriting. I haven’t let myself (or haven’t been able to) write other things in the meantime. It’s like having a marble stuck in my throat, like not being able to breathe.

I am a daughter who has spent only a handful of days with her parents in the last eighteen months and is missing Christmas for the second year in a row.

I am a woman who packed away her platform sandals and tropical-print dresses and needs to buy rain boots and a better umbrella.

I am lonely, more so than I ever was in Malaysia and Holland. Even though I am making new friends and getting reacquainted with old ones, easy connection and intimacy seem to elude me. Even with myself. This new Vancouverite I’m becoming is a stranger. I never planned to be her. I didn’t dream of the day when I would move here, the way I dreamed about Operation Hejira.

Margaret and Mireille, my will and my heart, are not getting along too well. Margaret is busy trying to build new labyrinths, new structures and routines so I can get things done and get my bearings. She writes lists in my day planner and schedules writing sessions. She drags me to the doctor and the physiotherapist (and she’s hounding me about going back to yoga). She insisted that I get some afterschool care for the kids and find a coffee shop I liked to write in.

Mireille is swirling with emotions, grieving the end of travel, enchanted by this gorgeous coastal city, petrified that she will never catch up on the many deadlines. She goes paragliding and cries while watching music videos on repeat. She has fallen in love with Lena Dunham because she also feels lost and raw and alive.

“Mireille is so into herself!” Margaret complains. “She hasn’t said anything about the labyrinth I’m building!”

And what a beautiful labyrinth it is. There’s a gas fireplace and a barbecue, an electronic hot water dispenser and a king-size bed. I can see mountains when I walk to the grocery store. We have the nicest landlords in the history of the world. Shawn has never been happier in his work life. Lia and Nico are like pigs in mud at their new school. I love what Margaret has done with the place.

But Mireille is so bowled over by these competing feelings ~ joy and confusion and paralysis and triumph and fatigue and this-damn-cough ~ that she hasn’t been able to acknowledge Margaret’s work. She’s even resentful that Margaret is just marching on in the face of all this change.

I am coaxing these two to work together. Margaret can take on some of the feelings, name them and organize them, write them out, so Mireille can catch her breath. And Mireille can pitch in with the labyrinth-building: “Oh pretty please, can we go to this hot yoga class with LIVE MUSIC? Can we start a writing group? And I’m dying to go on retreat again.”

I am pretty sure that one of the things I have to contribute to the world is living an art-committed life out in the open where people can see. That’s why the three-month silence bothers me. I know I’m not the only writer or artist who has felt busy, disoriented, smothered and everything else when negotiating a big life change. If you’re there now, will you do this with me?

Close your eyes and imagine everyone around the world who’s wobbly and wants to get grounded, who’s tired and wants a break, who’s lonely and wants to be seen. Reach out to all of those people and wish them peace and ease and connection from the bottom of your swirly, overwhelmed heart.

And then, imagine that all of us are sending that peace and ease and connection back to you. I am doing that right now. I am beaming you the rock-solidness of the mountains, and the nimble current of whitewater, and an enormous West Coast hug.

Ah, this feels good. To speak up, to say hello, to send you some love. I feel like I’m coming out of hibernation.

Thanks for being there.

A few notes in closing (because the world goes on and people do stuff, even when I’m hibernating):

Jen Bulthuis is a dear friend from university who makes remarkable story-inspiring objects (aka toys). She is raising funds for her company, Fidoodle, and I’m thrilled to be a supporter. Campaign ends on Thursday, December 13!

Dale Davidson, who I met at the World Domination Summit a few years ago, did a great interview with me in September: Using Travel to Enhance Creativity. I love how Dale combines travel and learning in such a thoughtful way.

A past client, Laureen Marchand, posted a series of articles in October that I found really comforting:

• Why Artists Need Structure
• What to Do When Life Isn’t Perfect
• How Do We Build the Structures We Need?

In her online store, Grasslands Gallery, you can see (and buy!) the beautiful work of Laureen and the artists she represents.

My younger sister, Joanna, is in her second year at art college and she just went public with some of her work on her new blog, joanna.gresik.ca. This makes me so happy, I can’t tell you.

Please say hello in the comments. Consider this an open thread ~ just tell me what you’re up to and how you’re feeling. I’ve missed you!

P.S. Many thanks (and happy birthday wishes!) to Bridget Pilloud for her contributions to this post. xoxo

Image courtesy of aurélien

Tomorrow, I’m getting on an airplane to fly from Toronto to Vancouver.

This is not what I was expecting to do this week. I thought I would be settling into my in-laws’ house, getting the kids ready for their first day at the country school down the road. I thought we would enjoy a quiet fall, housesitting, catching up with friends and family in the area. I thought we would book tickets back to Malaysia in January. I thought I would have peace and quiet to hunker down on my work after two months of summer hustle and bustle.

But everything can change on a dime.

When we visited Ottawa in August, Shawn went to lunch with colleagues from his old office. Afterward his boss let him know that they were hiring a research coordinator for a new employment research centre in Vancouver, and they wanted him to apply.

Cue a week of agonizing discussions about what to do. Could we give up our life on the move after only a year? Could we let go of the plans we had for fall and beyond? Could we undertake the challenge of finding a new home and school in a big unfamiliar city?

But the most important question seemed to be, did this job involve challenging, meaningful work for Shawn? On a warm August night, we sat outside in Adirondack chairs under the stars and I grilled him in my best coaching fashion: What excites him about employment research? What opportunities does this job present that haven’t been available to this point in his career? How does he feel about letting go of his other business ideas?

And when it seemed certain that this job presented the best option for Shawn’s work life, a chance he’s been searching for for years, the choice seemed clear. Much as we’ve loved our year abroad, work for Shawn has been the one piece of the puzzle missing, and this job solves that very neatly, while leaving all of the other pieces (new territory to explore, strong Chinese community, good schools) intact.

So Shawn applied and got the job. He signed the offer of employment last Friday. I’m super proud and thrilled for him.

A clear choice doesn’t mean an easy choice.

I’ll admit, I grieved. I cried. I panicked. I didn’t know how I would pull myself together after a turbulent summer ~ we spent every week in a different place, almost always as guests in other people’s homes, and of course, the kids were with us 24/7. I was feeling the stress of being over-committed to work and creative projects. It was painful to work on the Malaysian section on my memoir, suddenly having to mourn the fact that I wouldn’t be going back there.

To be honest, I still haven’t gained my equilibrium. I’m falling forward, into September, into a new city. Shawn’s excitement is carrying me along, and the kids are stoked to get back on an airplane. My cousins in Vancouver have jumped to our aid, and a friend in Penang has already volunteered to ship the belongings that we left there. I know I will land softly, when I land, thanks to the love and support of my community.

I’ve been wondering what story to tell myself about this abrupt change of plans. What thought is comforting? What makes sense? And one answer came to mind:

God must have something wonderful waiting for me in Vancouver if she’s in such a hurry to get me there.

I blush at the presumption of that thought, that I would deserve something wonderful, that God would be paving my way like that. Strange how it’s been easier to accept the graces of Malaysia, the delights of Europe, because they were more of my own choice and doing. But believing that story helps reconcile me to the losses, the changes, the work of moving. I’m practicing pronoia, trusting that good things are coming, better than I could ask or imagine.

Life design is a funny thing.

You make specific plans but they can get up-ended by a sudden opportunity. Accidents or illness can throw you a curve ball. You try something and find out you don’t like it or it doesn’t work for your family.

But underneath, what doesn’t change are your values. For me, no matter where I live or what I do, I rest on this bedrock of connection, art, learning, and adventure. Operation Hejira is alive and well, whether I’m in Canada or Malaysia or Timbuktu, because I’m doing work I love, with people I love, in places I love.

I have so much more to say but we’re getting boxes ready to ship across the country, so I’d better go. Next stop: West Coast!

Have you gotten any curve balls lately? How have your values kept you anchored and on track?

Oh, and let me know if you’re in Vancouver ~ I’ll be looking to connect once we get settled!

 Image credit: Kenny Louie

A letter to director and film-maker Grant Peelle

Dear Grant,

I was thrilled to discover that your documentary, I’m Fine, Thanks, was showing at the Ottawa International Film Festival on a day when I just happened to be in town.

I lived in Ottawa for twelve years — our townhouse was just a short walk from the World Exchange theatre that hosted the festival — but we moved away last July. Now we’re back in the area for a few weeks, visiting family and friends and catching up on medical appointments.

So by happy coincidence I was able to get a ticket and see the film in person rather than watch the download on my computer (I’m one of almost 4500 backers who contributed to the film’s campaign on Kickstarter).

My husband Shawn and I could have been a family featured in your film.

We had the steady jobs and the nice house, but I was never happy with the way that my dream of writing fiction got the short end of the stick. In fact, I was so unhappy that I ended up with clinical depression and spent years learning how to remake myself and my life so I could be healthy and write the way I wanted to.

Shawn and I followed the travels of your producer Adam Baker and his family in Australia, New Zealand, and Thailand back in 2009 and were really inspired by the freedom they found to do what they loved. In 2011, after months of planning, we embarked on our own Operation Hejira: Shawn quit his job, we sold our townhouse, and we left Canada with our two kids, aged five and three.

I’m writing a book that touches on many of the themes of I’m Fine, Thanks.

Pilgrimage of Desire is a memoir of our first year of travel that delves deeply into the Before aspect of my story, showing why I succumbed to depression in the first place and how I found my way out.

This past May, I ran a successful campaign on Indiegogo and raised $10,000 to finance the publication of Pilgrimage of Desire. The creative demands and the emotional intensity of this campaign were something I couldn’t have imagined handling even a year ago, but Operation Hejira has strengthened my confidence and resilience tenfold.

Connecting with the 157 people who backed my book was a highlight of my year. I can’t thank them enough, and I know you know how that feels.

What an experience to see I’m Fine, Thanks in a crowd.

Hearing the laughter when Johnny B. Truant talked about the banality of bread in crumb form. The gasp when the voiceover described how John Vogel and Nancy Sathre-Vogel cycled from Alaska to Argentina with their two boys. The tears when Victoria choked up about how she felt trapped in her life as an attorney, unable to spend the time she wanted to with her daughter.

I was struck early on by the short clip from your childhood, of your dad telling you to put the video camera down, that nobody wanted to watch all the footage you were taking. What’s telling is not only the moment itself, but the fact that you remembered it and were able to find that clip decades later to include in the film. That tossed-off remark must have made a big impression on you.

As I work on my own book, the story of my relationship with my mother and her influence on my choices in life has loomed large in the narrative. Of course our parents just want the best for us, but so seldom do they know exactly what that is (heck, we often don’t know ourselves). So I really believe in questioning the expectations of those closest to us, which can often send us farthest off course.

Another favourite moment of mine was the look on Karen Putz‘s face when she was barefoot water-skiing. I guarantee you that everyone in the theatre was thinking either “I want that!” or “Thank God I have that!” It reminded me of the day this past June when our family took a ferry to one of the Frisian islands in the North Sea and rode tandem bikes along the dunes. I couldn’t wipe the ridiculous grin off my face.

I’m sorry we didn’t get the chance to talk in person yesterday, Grant.

As soon as the film was over, I got caught up in conversation with a coaching client of mine.

She and I have been working together since last October but had never met. She’s a screenwriter who was suffocating in her government job. As we were walking out of the theatre, she told me that she had just given her notice at work and will be spending the next year devoted to her film and writing projects. That decision has been a long time coming, so how cool to learn about it after watching your documentary. As you can imagine, I’m Fine, Thanks really spoke to her. We had a couple of long, emotional hugs afterward, and I’m really touched to have played a small part in her emancipation.

Thank you for taking the risk to make this documentary and put it out in the world.

Let’s get everybody from “I’m fine” to “I’m freaking awesome.”

Yours,

Indiegogo tells me that there are 64 hours left in the Pilgrimage of Desire campaign.

Running this fundraiser has opened me up to an unprecedented range of emotions.

Because running this fundraiser has allowed me to be affected by other people much more than I usually am.

When I send an email to hundreds of friends and family, I feel eager and shy. When people respond with chatty messages and contributions, I feel ecstatic. When I get silence back, I feel curious and a little uneasy. When there’s curt dismissal, I feel wounded and mystified.

When I see the total amount go up quickly, I feel hopeful! When it stalls, I feel discouraged.

When I hear comments back about the book, I flush with pleasure. Comments like:

This project is beautiful, moving, and inspiring. Thank you for making this book. xo — Sarah Selecky (short story writer and creator of Story is a State of Mind)

LOVE IT! LOVE IT! You were a great creativity coach to me, and still are through your blog and email blasts – and this is just wonderful. And, I will guarantee you that just as I saw myself (misery and future salvation) in it, many other creatives will too. Pleasers of the world, set yourselves free! — Marla (one of my first clients)

Alison, your prose is lush, and your message so important! Thank you for writing this beautiful memoir — I can’t wait to read the rest! — Melissa Dinwiddie (a creativity coach who just posted a lovely interview with me)

WOW, girl – this is beautiful – the prose, the beauty of the pages, the vulnerability, the challenge. I’m so very impressed by how this has taken shape so far, and so excited for you. Blessings as the journey unfolds! — Jacquie de Raaf (my sister-in-law; the support from family has been extra special)

I have always remembered you as the woman who chose to pay the full fee because you knew you deserved it. And so you do, dear Alison. I honour all you have accomplished in your life’s journey so far and look forward to hearing more from you as you guide others on their creative path. — Janice Falls (the therapist who gave me the handrail image for intention)

When I decide to post these comments as social proof, I feel prickly with self-consciousness.

When I see Shawn cook, do dishes, buy groceries, and look after the kids all day for two weeks, I feel lucky and also guilty.

Many of these feelings are unfamiliar and uncomfortable, even the good ones.

My instinct towards independence means that I like to insulate myself. I’ll interact, I’ll collaborate, but I hesitate to put myself in a position where I must rely on the good graces of others. I’d rather stay in control.

And now, my art, my service, is asking more from me. As I said in my Women Branching Out interview with Christie Halmick:

As artists, I think we all reach a point where we have to recruit others to our cause if we want our creations to have the scope and power they deserve. So this fundraiser is great practice in advocating for myself and my writing, something that every professional artist needs to be adept at.

And doing this has reminded me that in giving there is receiving. When I worry that I’m putting people out by asking for money and publicity, I try to remember what they’re getting back: the joy of being useful, the fulfillment of being invested in an important project, and the pleasure of connection. Friends, family, and strangers have stepped forward to back this campaign, and they seem delighted to do it. So when I feel shy about sending out yet another email request, I remember that I’m giving people a gift too — the gift of doing communal good.

I wonder how many of us keep our projects modest, our ambitions curtailed, because we don’t want to subject ourselves to these emotions? The sting of rejection and the thrill of reward are both intense.

I’m practicing my creative rituals to keep myself grounded: writing down God’s words, doing yoga, meditating, and spending time with my family. But the emotions are still upending me. And that’s okay.

With a few days to go in the campaign, I’m reminded of a story from Frog and Toad Together (hat-tip to Sara Zarr for connecting this story to the creative process in a writing workshop I took with her).

The Garden

Toad admires Frog’s garden and wants one of his own. Frog sends him off with some seeds and a warning that a garden is hard work. Toad plants the seeds and then shouts at them to start growing. But nothing happens.

Frog thinks that the seeds are afraid because of the shouting, and advises Toad to leave them alone. But Toad cannot. He lights candles so they will not be afraid of the dark. He reads stories and poems, sings songs, and plays music for the seeds. Still nothing. And Toad is so tired that he falls asleep.

When Frog wakes him up, wonder of wonders! The garden has sprouted!

“Now you will have a nice garden too,” says Frog.

“Yes,” said Toad, “but you were right, Frog. It was very hard work.”

I feel a strange sense of peace about this fundraiser. Yes, there is a temptation to shout at the seeds to grow a little taller! But I know that I’ve done my utmost to run a successful campaign, and now it’s out of my hands. I will keep sending emails and doing updates, but I must trust the seeds to do their thing.

You know about the campaign. And I know you will become a contributor if you believe in its mission:

To inspire creatives who are prone to depression that they can follow their desires and design a joyful art-committed life.

Peace out.

P.S. Michelle, my book designer, has written an impassioned endorsement for Pilgrimage of Desire on her own site. I am privileged to partner with someone who believes so full-heartedly in my work.

Have you ever wondered what “being stuck” really means? 

Do you ever wonder what suppressing your gifts and talents does to your mind, body, and soul?

Do you ever wonder how stepping out of the mainstream ~ mortgage, car, kids, and work ~ could change your life?

I began asking myself these questions when staring both depression and creative frustration in the face. Through the process of embracing and making room for creative flow in my life, I discovered that service to creativity brings infinitely more reward than service to stuff. This discovery led me and my young family to ditch the mortgage ~ and the secure job ~ in favour of a year-long, world-wide adventure we call Operation Hejira.

Pilgrimage of Desire recounts how I took slow, steady steps to enable this voyage, the challenges faced along the way, and ~ more importantly ~ includes ideas and exercises for all those who are beginning to question how they can bring more creativity and flow into their own lives.

Pilgrimage of Desire is the story of how I learned to leave behind sanctioned concrete and follow my own desire lines, and how you can do the same.

I am devoted to getting this book into your hands.

I will be self-publishing Pilgrimage of Desire in digital and limited-edition print versions in November 2012. In order to do that, I’m running a 30-day Indiegogo fundraiser to finance the design, editing, and printing costs. I am crowd-funding this project because I believe in the power of many.

I invite you to subscribe to the Pilgrimage of Desire mailing list and read the sample chapters:

Email Address

See what we’re doing with the story and design, and find out if it speaks to you. And if it does, I hope you will contribute and claim some of the lovely rewards I’ve put together, including the book itself.

I am really really proud of this work.
It’s the best of all I have to offer right now.
I hope you love it too.

Thank you for getting the word out and making this book real.

I would love it if you contributed
and shared the fundraiser with your friends! xoxo 

]]> http://www.gresik.ca/2012/05/pilgrimage/feed/ 0 http://www.gresik.ca/2012/05/pilgrimage/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AlisonGresik/~3/b_rCMHadN1A/ http://www.gresik.ca/2012/05/memoir-contraction/#comments Fri, 04 May 2012 12:00:03 +0000 Alison http://www.gresik.ca/?p=716

Part 1: Genesis
Part 2: Expansion
Part 3: Contraction

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And we were off!

Michelle got down to work on naming the book while I tackled the prologue. This piece gave me more trouble than Chapter One, since it had a bigger job to do in introducing me and my story, and pulling together the overarching themes of the book.

Saturday mornings, my sister Melody and I went to Caribou Coffee at 6 a.m. to work on our creative projects. I poked away at the prologue, and she tagged and edited photos for her scrap-booking. And we interrupted ourselves and each other to talk and show each other things. (Shit, I’m starting to cry in the middle of McDonald’s, writing this. Mel, I miss you.)

I remember one afternoon at the community pool. I had been trying to crack the code of that dang prologue, and it felt like my brain was tied in knots. I was thinking so hard about fixing the problems that I was hardly paying attention to the kids splashing in the water.

At last I asked myself, Do you really want to struggle with this instead of enjoying where you are?

Oh! No, I most certainly do not, I replied.

Then I let go, and the knots unravelled and the ropes slid away, and I looked up from the inside of my head and relaxed.

Too soon, our time in Grosse Pointe was over and it was time to move on to the overseas portion of Operation Hejira. At the beginning of September, I found myself on an airplane with Shawn and the kids across the aisle. Writers who are parents, you will understand that I took immediate advantage of this situation and booted up my laptop. It seemed perfectly fitting that the puzzle pieces of the prologue finally slid into place, and I finished it up before my battery died.

Running into turbulence

As soon as I got off the plane in Hong Kong, I was slammed with a cold that held me hostage for most of September. But I did manage to polish up the prologue with Brenda’s help in time to read the piece for people who attended my Virtual Birthday Party by telephone. And from their response, I now knew for sure that there was an audience out there for the story.

When the bronchitis cleared from my lungs, I turned my attention to The Field Guide to Truth and Beauty.

October and November were consumed with creating the product and doing the networking, guest posting, blogging, newsletter writing, and social media push to get the word out ~ a kind of warm-up for the memoir launch that was coming. Bridget created a project plan that outlined all of my tasks week by week, and I put my head down and worked the plan.

At first I was happy to get back to work after my illness. I was thrilled with the material that was coming together in Truth and Beauty. Michelle sent me a prototype of the memoir interior using the finished prologue and Chapter One, and I was walking on the ceiling for two days. My words had never looked so damn good.

But things started going pear-shaped in November. I was working a tech-writing contract in addition to doing my coaching work, and hours were short. I did the 5 am to 11 pm shift too many days in a row. I kept putting “Write Chapter Two” on my to-do list and then ignoring it. Shawn took the kids swimming alone, took them to church alone, took them to the park alone, all so I could work. I might as well have been in a padded cell for all I was seeing of Penang.

At the end of November, I booked a hotel room and took myself off for a mini retreat to sooth myself with a little progress on the book. This was a blissful interlude ~ I did yoga on the balcony, took productive naps, and polished off a chunk of Chapter Two.

I also reconnected with my desire to make the book real. I used Bridget’s Meet Your Inner You meditation, and the question I asked Inner Me, the question that bubbled up like a child’s, was “Can I have this book?” And Inner Me replied:

Only you can give the book to yourself. You need to allow yourself to feel how much you want it, ask for it, and give it to yourself every day. Ask for what you need for your work, and give that to yourself.

How can I know that I have what the book needs?

You can’t. That’s the risk you take. But you know that you have given yourself the best conditions, a supportive team and partner, and you know you have the skill and drive to complete the project. You know you have the creativity and stamina to meet the challenges. Outside of that, you just need faith.

No one can take the book away from you.

I found that my desire to write this book was as strong as ever and I was very happy to renew my commitment to it.

Calling a halt

I continued to try to do everything for a few more weeks ~ contract work, Truth and Beauty, memoir ~ but my energy plum ran out.

One of the benefits of my new stripped-down lifestyle was that it became obvious very quickly when things were off-balance. Operation Hejira was supposed to be about sharing adventures with my family, not chaining myself to my computer.

When I thought of moving ahead with my ambitious timeline for the memoir, which called for me to begin serial publishing in February, I felt anxious and overwhelmed. Shawn and I were starting to plan our travel in 2012, which meant four months of moving around in Europe and Canada over the summer, and I didn’t see how I would be able to keep up with everything and still enjoy myself.

So, after conversations with Bridget and Michelle, I put everything on hold.

I didn’t know whether the memoir project would move forward, or in what configuration. I decided to give myself a true break over Christmas and come back to the questions from a more rested place. And I decided to stop trying to force things to happen on an arbitrary schedule, and allow my intuition and natural rhythms to take the lead.

The messages I got during my break only reinforced my decisions. Everywhere I saw many other writers stepping back from their hectic pace. I chose Chillax as my word of the year for 2012, which captured my desire to let go, go with the flow, focus on a few of the most important things, and be really present to the beauty of my life and my family. I wanted the year to be more like birth ~ something growing slowly without me needing to make so much effort.

This process of stepping back felt really good and also really scary. The idea of having no goals, letting go of the imperative to produce a book in 2012, made me hyperventilate. But I knew it was the only way forward.

To be continued . . .

Next week I’ll be making a big announcement about the memoir! You can sign up on my mailing list or subscribe to the RSS feed if you don’t want to miss it.

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