Posts Tagged ‘Mimosa Lane’

What opens your heart?

Wednesday, December 4th, 2013

Holiday cheer? Holiday giving? Holiday spirit? I want those things mean to me the same as they would any other time of the year.  I listed my “heart happy” goals yesterday, for the holiday and beyond, and rereading them now makes me smile. I’m actually thinking I should be reading them every morning. Every new day I don’t feel up for or ready to face or willing to tackle. Because it’s not about me, not entirely. Each day is about living and giving and sharing and belonging.

open heart people

Opening your heart to the world around you…what better goal to have? There’s an entire philosophy behind our need to belong and how it drives the majority of conscience and subconscious behavior. Why do we do the things we do, why do we give up on the things we do, and why do we avoid those very things we know we need to face most? Fear and doubt, I say. We worry, and feel insignificant or powerless, and are too often on a self-fulfilling path of “I can’t make that work so why bother.”

“Don’t do that,” my daily list says. The list at the bottom of yesterday’s post that I’ll shake myself awake with each new morning now, because I want this holiday and this life and this chance I have to write and live well to mean something  more than what I want (and am maybe a little afraid I can’t have) for  myself.

What about other people? How can I be useful and meaningful to them?

shared heart

That’s what I hope my writing’s about– (more…)

What’s a heart made of?

Tuesday, December 3rd, 2013

Holidays are for hearts. Whatever we celebrate this time of year, images of families and loved ones and friends and memories surround us. The season lifts us up, makes us homesick, sometimes brings unwanted sadness. Our hearts are in play. Done deal. We’re feeling something more, something deeper, something real.

I often wonder why–you know, besides the obvious manipulation by the media and advertisers, wanting us to spend, Spend, SPEND so we can feel even better (or worse) as we long for more of whatever we want (or have lost) most. What’s behind those heart strings tugging at our thoughts and memories and imaginations?

heart strings music

We’re more open around the holidays, even the jaded among us. We engage with the world and people around us, because it’s all closer, it’s all bigger. How can we not be affected?

Our minds are on the every day of work and kids and obligations and worries. We plod onward with all we think we are. But we’re also conditioned to feel certain ways in November and December and early January. Whether we want to or not, we’re trained from infancy to fit into the holiday mold our families before us have spent generations crafting. But what do we truly want our hearts to feel and believe and desire this time of year?

In matters of the heart, what’s habit and what’s intention? What makes us happy, and what are we doing because we’re told it should make us happy? If only we could tune in and find the magic of our own individual experience (as the world and the holidays experience and evolve and march onward around us), the hustle and bustle that distracts from more than this season would fade a bit…and we’d discover the holiday of oyr dreams.

heart happy shadow

That’s my plan this year, anyway. To be, in this moment, what my heart’s always wanted this time of year to be. To understand my hearts desire and see it come to life around me. To inspire, through my stories and my blogs and the other fun things coming soon that my publicist would smack me for talking about before its time (waving at Nancy Berland and her fabulous team while keeping mum’s the word for just a little longer), everyone I reach to long for the same.

Let’s say them out loud… (more…)

‘Tis The Season… To feel alone?

Tuesday, November 19th, 2013
“For unloved daughters and sons, the stress of the holidays sweeps in much more than the nuisance of crowded stores, piped-in joys, worries about money or pleasing everyone with the right gift…”
Currently writing about (and studying) grown foster kids who’ve aged out of the system. You know, in the midst of my charming, warm family novels. It might not come as a shock to you that holidays can be difficult for many in our country. But would it surprise you to know that they’re difficult for me? Maybe even for you sometimes, just a little more than you’ve let yourself think about?
If so

“For unloved daughters and sons, the stress of the holidays sweeps in much more than the nuisance of crowded stores, piped-in joys, worries about money or pleasing everyone with the right gift…”

I’m writing into a new story about (and studying) grown foster kids who’ve aged out of the system. You know, in the midst of my charming, warm family novels. I stumbled across this article from Psychology Today, among many others, in my research.

It might not come as a shock to you that holidays can be difficult for many in our country. But would it surprise you to know that they’re difficult for me? And maybe even for you sometimes, just a little more than you’ve let yourself deal with?

baby stress

Yeah, it’s a cute baby. And we fight so hard to keep the holidays full of cheer, despite disappointments or unhappiness from our pasts. And that’s a good thing. We move forward, we heal, we become who’re we’re meant to be. There’s no one I know who thinks it’s a good idea to stagnate in the hurt of the past and let it define all that will ever come. But as cute as all the holiday hype is, and as much as we might want to dive into the celebration along with everyone else, sometimes there’s just too much bubbling up from deep inside to laugh or hug or work or jingle away.

“For many, it [holidays] will conjure up–almost as if fresh and hew–the pain, exclusion, and loss they felt in their families of origin,” the article says.

Yeah. That’s real stuff. Holiday stuff we don’t want to see but too often can’t dismiss. I’m determined to write an inspirational, hopeful, loving and celebratory Christmas novella for next November/December’s readers. But in it (because I’m me and I’m made up of all my experiences of family origin, and because I’m writing about characters with disconnection and abandonment and insecurity and fear as their own earliest memories), I’m also going to be tackling the reality that many of us face each year– that, “the holidays sometimes evoke a renewed sense of self-doubt about the decision made, along with a feeling of isolation. The weight of cultural disapproval may feel heavier at this time of year…” (more…)

Inspire yourself! WIN Vintage Trifari…

Friday, November 15th, 2013

“Passion is energy.
Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you.”

~ Oprah Winfrey

The holiday season every year, I’m reminded how lucky I am, how blessed I am, and how many inspirational things wait for me around every corner. That might sound corny. But the leaves are changing, my wind chimes are singing, families and friends are making reconnecting… There’s passion in the air. Passion for loving and living and being more aware of how inspired we can be by the amazing world around us.

“Great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion.”

~Martha Graham

dancer colorful

Our lives are challenging, to say the least. Many of us (myself included) can struggle through the holidays with difficult memories or difficult twists and turns in our lives and families. But this time of the year, EVERY year, I’m determined not to let myself forget that how I react to my life defines my life. And I’m determined to be passionate. I’m determined to love and live and be excited about today and tomorrow–and to hopefully inspire people around me to want the same.

That’s why butterflies are my totem, and a major part of my brand…and my challenge to you ;o) If you feel down or stressed or overwhelmed this year, think of butterflies hovering freely on every breeze, around every flower, in every garden of your imagination. And even when it’s cold outside, they’re waiting, growing inside their cocoons, biding their time until they’ve transformed into something even more beautiful.

Like this!

trifari butterfly

My November contest prize!

It’s a vintage Alfred Philippi Trifari pin, like the special treasures little Polly cherishes in Christmas on Mimosa Lane.

Enter to WIN here.

Be inspired.

Pay it forward.

Share  your passion this season.

Share your excitement with those you love!

The Soul of the Matter: Listening…

Tuesday, November 5th, 2013

New beginnings aren’t just about action. In my case, there’s no real action yet. But I’m definitely beginning again. A new story in the works, a new release to plan for, a new PR team, a new season for my family as my son prepares to graduate from high school (whimper, sniffle, YAY!).

start

Before any challenge, and a new beginning is always a challenge, it’s the start that’s so scary, not the actual work to be done. It’s the watching and wondering and trying to subdue those pesky emotions and fears that sucks our momentum and energy away. I’m living that right now. I’m in-the-flesh proof that living never gets “easier,” no matter how much success you’ve had or how far you’ve come (in my case, raising a family and building a thriving publishing career and learning to write emotional novels that connect with readers and finding a publisher and agent and publicity team who believe in my vision maybe more than I can believe in myself yet).

But living isn’t about easy, I’ve learned.

You have, too, right?

live

To live, not just endure or survive or bide your time, is the goal. It’s the start of all that’s right in the world. Any world, whoever you are and wherever you call home. It’s never going away, the drive to live today. Just today. To make this moment count.

My mind numbs at the possibilities. The responsibilities. The choices and the weight of making them right. The possibilities and how few care what I want them to be, or how I need them to pan out.

PossibilitiesPostLetting go. As you wait and wonder and listen and try to move ahead but feel the weight of all you don’t know dragging you down, it’s tomorrow that you’re hearing, if you let go and let it in. It’s today that stands in your way. It’s worry that you throw in your own path to “soften” the impact.

Step out of those shadows with me. (more…)

Where do you buy your books? A statistical rant.

Monday, October 28th, 2013

Where do you buy your books?

I’ve heard in author discussion recently that the publishing press and the traditional publishers they front for want us to still buy that 70% of all books sold are still sold in bricks and mortar stores.

If they’re talking about only print books, and maybe hard cover books or best-selling authors (and I mean the ones who sell millions of copies of each release), then, yeah, I’ll buy that. And if you’re one of those authors who can score a decent hard cover print run or for whom it doesn’t matter where you sign your next contract you’ll sell because you’re already branded, then New York must seem quite flattering and attractive for you.

old books

If you’re mid-list author or a newbie, or even some of the best-selling authors I know (who’ve for years been hitting lists left and right and USED to score tasty hard cover print runs but not so much anymore), you aren’t buying the above statistic any more than I am. Because you live in the real world where digital is the new mid-list, mass market platform and traditional publishers have no clue how to make digital publishing work except for the branded, and for the branded the money’s still in physical stores.

In the real world, at least in commercial fiction,we want to see our books in stores, but we know that 70% of our sales won’t happen there. At least we hope not, because print distribution more than sucks, it’s becoming non-existent.

I write for Amazon. Montlake. They’ve made me more money in a year (my first novel with them launched the end of Oct., ‘12) than my primary traditional publisher has in my entire career (and that would be over 8 years of being “successful” on their lists). Montlake finds readers who love my work (reviews prove that), buy almost exclusively digital (95% of my sales) and come back for more (proof that my new team understands their marketing business and doesn’t care that we’ve been blacklisted from most physical stores). They’ve sold more of each title so far (including the one that’s currently been out for just a couple of months) than my traditional publisher could through their “successful” print distribution when I walked away.

Do I wish that my Mimosa Lane books were in print bookstores?

I do. Print readers would love them, too, and I trust my publisher to make that connection for me when they can.

Do I regret that I’m making TEN TIMES the royalty rate on my digital sales at Amazon Montalke than I have at any of my traditional publishing houses?

I do not.

Do I believe the publishing press that doesn’t want digital publishing to be the end of the print publishing model as we know it (notice I don’t say the end of print publishing, just that the way it’s always been done is going to have to change) includes my and my peer’s digital sales in their calculation of “book sales” to come up with their 70% statistic?

Don’t make me laugh.

The Soul of the Matter: The trees are raining…

Monday, October 7th, 2013

You wait, a storm’s chaos beyond your night window. The long summer, an overly-warm fall, cling fiercely. A thunderstorm in October.

It feels like forever, as if there will always be more. Steamy humidity. Suffocating.  Like moving through warm water that never cools. You long for the fierceness to break, for the dark storm, this weary season, to pass.

You do not expect such glory.

trees raining sunshine

Morning rises. Trees rain drops of watery sunlight. Leaves chant with each sway of limb and breeze. It’s safe. Come out. Play. You inhale, and you know.

It’s because of the storm, this beauty.

treas raining leaves

Trust the long nights. The chaos.

Morning magic comes in its own time.

Embrace the rain beyond the window, the storm within. When change is ready for you, step into that glorious opening. Live. And begin the wait again.

How You Write: Somewhat adjacent to “I Give Up!”

Wednesday, September 25th, 2013

Read another segment of my new non-fiction writing project, “How You Write,” HERE.

writing red pen

For those who want more for now, until I pull all the past posts into the new book, check out my blog writing craft series.

Look for more fun, inspirational and other crazy stuff on the blog soon!

Missing everyone bunches!

~~Anna

How You Write: My Non-Fiction Novel Project

Monday, September 23rd, 2013

Followed my How We Write blog series? How YOU write is the novel project I’ve been waiting to launch forever.

Join me over on Wattpad…

writing pen

Or wait for the posts to crop up here on the blog.

I’m SUPER excited.

Hope you are, too.

And, yes, I’m back ;o) It’s been a crazy few months of finishing yet another book, burning out, revising regardless, promoting a new release, and getting my feet back under me. But I’m back.

I’ve missed you all!

Guest Blogging at Fresh Fiction–WIN!!!

Thursday, August 15th, 2013

We’re kicking Three Days on Mimosa Lane fun off big time beginning Monday–with my blog tour, where you can win great prizes at every stop and one commenter will take home a KINDLE PAPERWHITE ;o)

Amazon TDoML Cover

To prime the pump, I’m giving away a $5 Amazon gift certificate and an eBook of Three Days over at Fresh Fiction.

TODAY ONLY.

Just read the post, learn a little more about the book, and comment for your chance to win.

Don’t miss the fun ;o)