Organically Speaking: Writing that Makes a Difference

I think we all wonder and worry about our future. Whether we’ll have enough money for retirement. Whether our kids will grow up to be responsible adults. Whether our relationships will stand the test of time. What our career path holds for us, and what additional hardships we will face along the way.

This year is a watershed year for me, and, like many of my friends I’ve talked to, it seems to be a year for change. Radical change. Something in the world is moving, groaning, crying out for transformation, renewal, and hope. Like a butterfly emerging from its cocoon, I have evolved in so many ways.

One thing I’ve come to realize is that most people spend way too much time regretting the past or worrying about their future. But the only thing you can control is how you respond to the present moment, the here and the now. Life would be so much richer for most of us if we concentrated on being fully in our present. We need to strive to fill each moment of our lives with all of ourselves—to embrace each experience, whether good or bad, to feel each emotion, to drink in each sensation, to appropriate each gift that we are given.

We need to stand in the present moment, grounded in who we are, with our arms open wide to welcome our future. Can you feel your future coming to you? Wait for it. Feel the winds of your destiny coming to meet you. Smell the change in the air. Be patient, and the gift will come to you. Your kindred spirits will draw near. Be in the present. Fill your present, and your joy will shine from within you.

Yesterday I received an email out of the blue from a person who asked me to be a featured author at a fund-raising book signing event in Lockhart, the BBQ Capital of Texas. It’s an honor and privilege to be invited to an event because someone discovered my work online.

I’m so excited! Someone actually asked ME to come to their event because they like my writing. I hope this feeling never wears off, no matter how many book signings I’m invited to in the future.

I’ll be posting more details about the date and location of the event on the main website.

Cheers!

Hi all,

Sorry it’s been so long since my last post. The book signing at BookPeople over the weekend was awesome. We had quite a crowd, composed of family, friends, and several bookstore shoppers. The vibe was warm, welcoming, and fun. It felt a bit like an extended family gathering. Such a great way to end my first book “tour.” I couldn’t have imagined it being any better—except for the few friends who couldn’t make it for one reason or another.

But in the midst of the preparations and the logistics of putting on a good show, I was able to soak in the experience of it all. Standing up there, sharing my heart and my soul with the people I care most about in the world and seeing and feeling how proud they are of me—tell me, how can it get any better than this?

The BookPeople host Natalie told me my event was one of the best kind, because even the people who didn’t know me left feeling like they were part of the family. And that’s really what it’s all about. Sharing, loving, and touching people. I don’t care how many books we sold. What matters is that I made a few more friends and hopefully touched a few lives with my words.

For those of you who drove great distances to celebrate that day with me, for those of you who cheered me up on the phone and encouraged me (you know who you are), for those of you who have always believed in me and stuck by me, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you. It really means the world to me.

I plan to post a video clip from the reading soon. Stay tuned for more details as they become available. Also, visit my FaceBook photo album of the event here.

Hi all,

Despite a crashed hard drive and a nasty case of food poisoning last night, I’m happy to say that the San Diego photo album is finally up at my MySpace page.

Enjoy!

M

Howdy all,

I’m officing out of my local Starbucks today, as the storms that ripped through Texas and Oklahoma early this morning left me without power. Thankfully, everything is still standing (including the little nearly-dead tree that became a victim of a spring storm the first year I moved into my house), even the few tulips in my garden.

Unpredictable and often violent weather is one of the things I dislike most about living in Texas. God forgot to ask me what my plans were before He opened up the skies and let the heavens bellow. But even if I have to go three days without power (as I did last year during after a big spring storm), this is a gift. I’m lucky I didn’t lose my house, my life, my livelihood.

Every wrench in our plans is a gift. Some are harder to rationalize than others. What they force us to do is let go of our expectations and rouse us out of our complacency. Humans are creatures of habit—we take comfort in the known, even if our lives aren’t exactly what we’d dreamed about, and we didn’t quite achieve the goals we set for ourselves when we were younger.

Storms bring change. Change is scary. But change is good for the soul. Change stretches us, challenges us to be more than what we are. And those who inspire positive change in us are the people we should keep company with. Even if a storm is brewing on the horizon, hang onto the hope that the sun, indeed, will shine again.

Sorry I’ve been away for a while. I’ve recently discovered the über-addictive qualities of FaceBook. I really believe it’s the concept of being able to see, at least on some small scale, how we are connected to so many other people that fascinates us and draws us into the network concept that is FaceBook.

This concept of networking taps into one of the deepest human longings: a desire for community, of belonging. It’s great.

The past week has been one of spiritual and emotional brokenness. For me, it’s been cathartic. The disappointment of the book signing in College Station affected me, perhaps more than it should have. However, I believe there is a time to cry, to feel the emotions, to embrace them and learn from them. Every person has his or her own way of processing the circumstances of their lives.

For me, the emotions can be profound, intense and sometimes overwhelming. But in the end, the result is always learning. The beginning of wisdom, the renewal of dependence upon God to redeem every situation. The affirmation of continued hope in a thing unseen. Of faith, pure and simple and full of clarity and purpose.

The stripping away of every pretense of self-sufficiency; this is spiritual cleansing, healing and growth. Of finding that you are part of a community much larger than you could ever imagine, and how you are connected in so many unique ways to multitudes of souls that feed and encourage you in exactly the way you need.

Isn’t life awesome?

Hey folks,

The new Los Angeles photo album is up. Meet my friends from Italy here!

Hi all,

The most recent book signing photo album is up on my MySpace page. I’m also working on new photo albums for Los Angeles and San Diego. Hope to have them up this weekend.

Ciao!

Some of you may want to know how the book signing in my hometown went.

It came. It went. A few people braved the torrential rain to come out and support me. The microphone echoed and the people in the back row couldn’t hear me. There were multitudes of cell phones, pagers, and random college study group conversations peppering the reading session. We had to start the signing late because at about ten after four, no one had showed up, except for the family members I’d brought with me.

We sold a few copies of the book, but the bookstore will return a good number of the copies it ordered. We expected a crowd; we got a handful.

An objective analysis tells me the reading went well. Hey, at least I wasn’t mute or blind this time…. Still, it makes me wonder why I had an underlying expectation that, simply because I was in my hometown, more people would show up. Book signings aren’t exactly the hottest ticket in town on a Saturday afternoon.

I suppose my point here is that we have to be careful of developing expectations about how an event should unfold because we think we know the situation. I’m certainly guilty of that. I thought I could coast easy on this one—it was my hometown, after all. I expected to be reading to my third-grade Sunday school teachers and other folks who remembered me in pigtails and braces and whose sons used to jump up and down on my bed and pull my hair and hide my shoes and… well, you get the idea. I felt secure in knowing that people would come simply because they’ve known me since I was six years old.

This business is tough. People’s tastes and affinities are fickle. People say things to be polite. People have great intentions, but when they see the sky turn black and it starts raining buckets, they balk. They become faint of heart and they understand that I’ll understand why they didn’t come. And you know what? I do.

I understand that doing this book tour was not about the number of books I could sell in one day. It was about the experience of sharing something I created with people I’ve never met, and of giving back to those who have supported me and believed in me all these long years. A decade of writing, summed up in the few random shoppers in the store who put their day on hold for almost an entire hour to listen to me read something that I wrote. If that isn’t awe-inspiring and humbling, I’ve completely lost my perspective.

So, how did the book signing go? It was a home run.

Sorry I haven’t blogged in a while. I’m still recovering from the trip back home. Whenever I travel by myself, it’s always very interesting trying to manage my luggage. The irony of traveling with a bad back—you can’t travel light. Too many “peripherals” are necessary for maximum functionality. Or maybe I’m just a girl who likes to have wardrobe choices…

So to finish my library story. On Friday, I did in fact commandeer the microfilm reader, after stalking the front door of the library (remember the old Mervyn’s commercial—Open, Open, Open!) with another fellow researcher a few minutes before opening time. He was there early, too. I had a sense he might want the microfilm reader, so I moved closer to the door. He eyed me. I appeared nonchalant. The door opened and I made my move. I shoved my list of microfilm reels in the library workers’ hands as I listened to the other guy ask her to show him how to search the newspaper microfilm. She looked at me knowingly. My expression must have spoken volumes. She said she was going to let me go first since I’d been there yesterday trying to get on the machine. Yes! Sweet victory!

On another note, I was amazed to discover that absinthe was being served at a restaurant in San Diego within walking distance of my hotel. Since absinthe plays a key role in my novel, I decided to do some research on my own. I looked rather silly sitting by myself with a generous 3-oz pour of approximately 90-proof liquor (after diluted), taking pictures of the pretty colors… Needless to say, I didn’t finish it, as I needed to walk back to the hotel without falling down. But now I can say I know what it tastes like.

If you haven’t figured it out by now, I take my research very seriously.

But it is good to be back in Texas, where people open doors for you unbidden, and people say hello with a smile, just because they’re friendly. As much as I hate the fire ants and big squishy bugs and quirky weather and the occasional softball-size hail that comes with living in Tornado Alley, there really is no place like home.