Feed on
Posts
Comments

It’s funny, how our books are like children to us. So often, writing a book is likened to the process of giving birth (a highly romanticized notion of birthing, too, if you ask me…) and publishing is like sending our innocent youth out into the world to make or break themselves. Author John Locke sees each of his novels as “employees,” earning as much revenue as they can, but then he’s a salesman by career, perhaps bringing his children into the family business?

Mine are more like teenagers, alternately shy and recalcitrant, idealistic, and entirely independent of anything I might want to do with them.

Recently, I formatted an e-book for a client Continue Reading »

Are you writing a book, thinking about writing, or wondering just how the heck to get yourself published these days?

If you live in the DC metro area, help is on the way!

October 18-24, I will be at the Sante Wellness Center in Silver Spring, MD, offering a free presentation, workshop, and individual consulting sessions on writing and self-publishing. See the complete schedule here. (If you have a spiritual bent, check out the shamanic sessions, as well.)

Thursday evening, Oct. 20, 7:00-9:00 pm, join me for a free book signing and conversation about my book Finding Eagle: A Journey into Modern-Day Shamanism. You are welcome to pick my brain about Continue Reading »

“An honest, simple and heart-felt book… with profound nuggets of truth tucked inside.”
- Pathways Magazine

I’m happy to announce that my book on shamanism, Finding Eagle, got its first review! And they were nice!

You can read the full review here.

Pathways Magazine is a quarterly publication for mind/body/spirit/environmental resources in the Washington, DC metro area. You can read it online at www.PathwaysMagazine.com.

How did I get this review? I asked! If you are an author, it really pays to “do one thing” for your book each day.

 

 

Healing for the Earth

Lake Como with healing light

copyright 2009 Art Held

Today I am passing on wise words from shaman Sandra Ingerman. Regardless of our physical means or spiritual path, we each have a way to send love and caring into the world, to “focus on the strong spirit of the people, all of life, and the land itself” in Japan and around the world, and to project a calm vision of healing and peace. Her letter is below. Thanks for reading.

From: Sandra Ingerman

Our hearts expand as we embrace the enormity of all the pain being suffered by the people and all living beings in Japan who have been impacted by the earthquake and the tsunami.

When we feel that our hearts are breaking as we watch levels of suffering in actuality our hearts are expanding allowing us to be stronger and deeper channels of love and light.

Let us journey deep within ourselves transcending our egos and experience the vastness of our spiritual light and love. In this way we become beacons of light and love for all of life in Japan.  Let us expand our individual aura and become one with a spiritual pulsation and frequency to transform the radiation that is moving into the atmosphere.

Move out of a place of pity for the suffering you see and focus on the strong spirit of the people, all of life, and the land itself. In this way you project strength which leads to a foundation of support for all in need.

Let us sing songs of love and healing to the earth, the waters of the world, the air, and to the element of fire. Go outside and sing!

There is an extreme level of panic that is being “blasted” into the collective over the fear of radiation moving through our atmosphere.

Of course there are precautions we all must take on a physical level. But it is also important to remember that it is our egos that are moving into panic.

It is crucial right now that you do the spiritual work you have been practicing over the years. Take the time to find your center. Go out and spend lots of time in nature to center and refocus. Breathe deeply and remember that you are spiritual light and have all the tools and internal spiritual wisdom to guide you during this time.

As a global community we do have great power as we work together spiritually. Let us project a vision of healing and peace. Project a vision of cooling for the nuclear reactors and further disaster being avoided.

Do your transfiguration practice daily and throughout the day and experience yourself as divine light. Divine light has the power to transmute and transform all energies into healing energies. For thousands of years mystics and spiritual healers throughout the world have been using this way of working to transmute toxins and illness. Let us carry on the work that has shown itself to have so much potential for healing.

We must strengthen our spiritual connections so that we can always be open to receive spiritual information when we need it.

Spend a lot of time in nature connecting with the elements and the heartbeat of the earth. Reflect on how you can live a way of life that embraces beauty, harmony, honor and respect for all of life. When we as a collective start to live a harmonious way of life we will see the elements around us reflect back a state of harmony.

Learn to read the omens that nature will continue to show to help guide you.

We must learn to honor the rite of passage and initiation that humankind is going through. We are experiencing levels of death on many levels. Death is not an end but rather is a transition. 

In the bible it says that without a vision the people will perish. We are the dreamers of our world. Part of living a spiritual way of life is to be able to surrender to our deep spiritual wisdom and be the dreamers to help birth a new vision of a healthy way of life. We need to be able to hold a vision that the collective can move towards as the old is dismembered. Reflect on the vision you want to be projecting into the world right now and make changes to your vision to lead to a desired outcome. Engage your imagination in a more focused way. Project the best for all of life.

Build up your spiritual muscles!

Let us together hold the planet in love.

Remember that the media moves on after covering environmental, political, and economic events. People and all of life are still suffering the effects of the earthquake in Haiti and in New Zealand, the oil spill in the Gulf, the floods in Australia, the extreme weather in the U.S. – these are just to name a few.  People in the Middle East are still fighting for freedom.

All of life needs us to be a channel of light, love, and spiritual healing. We are one collective. We are not separate cultures, separate countries. We are going through an initiation together. Let us do our work and live our lives in a good way. That is how we can be in service to the whole.

During the full moon let us transfigure and experience our divine nature as we beam light and love throughout this great earth.

During the equinox remember the wonderful memories and dreams for your life and for the life of the planet. Project beauty into the collective. Plant seeds of love and beauty and inspiration in your inner garden so that they grow, blossom, and bear fruit here in our earth garden.

 Most of all be a channel of love and light in behalf of all of life!

My book Finding Eagle begins with this inscription:

We each have a story to tell. To not tell our story is to cheat the world – and ourselves – of the gift of our life.

Whenever we write, it is our life story that gives power to our words. It is our unique experience, our hard-won wisdom, our self-disclosure that draws the reader in, engages them, and keeps them reading. This is certainly true of memoir. It’s true when we write about our passion. And it’s true when we write about our business or life work.

It is our ability and willingness to share ourselves that gives authenticity and appeal to our words. This is also a prospect that can bring resistance and fuzzy thinking to our writing.

Over the last year or so, I have brought together my ideas on writing with impact and authenticity into a workshop I call Write Your Life Story. Many of these thoughts and techniques are posted on my blog for your use in both business and personal writing.

On Saturday, March 5, I will be presenting the workshop in person here in Missoula. It’s an opportunity for those of you in the Missoula area to go through these techniques and processes with me, ask questions, and apply them to your own writing project. The workshop is suitable for memoir, nonfiction, inspirational, personal, and business writing. Learn how to put more power into your writing by putting in more of yourself.

The workshop will cover: 

  • Honing in on what you want to say and why
  • Elements of a book proposal as a guide to writing
  • Writing with the “door open” and with the “door closed”
  • Shutting out the voices in your head
  • Techniques for effective writing and editing
  • How your book supports your life work

The workshop will be held Saturday, March 5th, 9:00 am – noon at the Red Willow Learning Center, 825 West Kent St, Missoula. Cost: $40. For more information or to register, please contact: Kathy Mangan, 406-721-0033 or rwlcmt@gmail.com.

I took a ballpark look recently at potential profits, as an author, from publishing an $18 book through various different channels. Here’s a summary of my results:

Sales Channel                                                 Estimated Profit/Book
E-book website sales                                                       $17.20
Print book website sales                                             $10.60
IPad                                                                             $10.00
Amazon Marketplace                                                 $  8.40
Amazon CreateSpace                                                                 $  7.70
Amazon Advantage for Authors                                      $  7.40
Kindle                                                                          $  6.30
Wholesale website sales (bookstores)                        $  4.60
Mainstream publishing royalties                                 $  1.80

From: “Profit Potential of Current Publishing Options,” Authentic Voice E-newsletter, Aug. 2010

If you are an author with publishing information or experience you would like to share with other Authentic Voice readers, please leave a comment to this post.

A Writing Meditation

rosehip with water drops, Whalers' Cove, AlaskaAs you begin your writing project – or have a day where you just can’t get focused – try this ten-minute meditation to get yourself on track. It can be done in silence or with restful music playing in the background. Make yourself comfortable, close your eyes, and imagine yourself in a favorite place in nature… Continue Reading »

wall covered with rusty saw bladesWe each have a story to tell; yet getting it down on paper can be an arduous task. I believe this is often because of all the voices we carry in our heads. The purpose of ritual is to quiet these voices until the only one Continue Reading »

Whaling or Wailing?

window reflection at Whalers' Cove LodgeIt didn’t take me long to discover that Whalers’ Cove Lodge is great for both whale watching and writing, but not for both at the same time!

My intention was to spend part of each day on the water, if I could, then come back to the lodge and write about it. Well, today is my last day here and my first day publishing a blog… There is so much to do here – whale watching, saltwater fishing, freshwater fishing, eco-touring, touring the fish hatchery, visiting the Continue Reading »

Wildlife Watching

Raven in Juneau AlaskaToday I am en route to Angoon, Alaska, approximately 100 miles south of Juneau in the Alaskan Inside Passage. I will be spending a week at Whalers’ Cove Lodge, sampling and writing about their outdoor wilderness and fishing activities. Wildlife watching is at the top of my list.

It turns out I’m not alone. According to a timely article in Alaska Airlines Magazine,* more than 70 million Americans each year spend a combined $46 billion on wildlife-watching activities. Were it a commercial enterprise, wildlife watching would “rank among Continue Reading »

Older Posts »