Christmas Manifesto Printable
Download your Christmas Manifesto here. Enjoy your holidays!
Read MoreI’m headed straight for the castle* – Watercolor a Day Month of May #5
My job takes me to lots of small towns in rural areas, very much like the town where I live. A neat perk is the drive. Whenever I can, I take a two-lane highway. In some spots it feels like the trees are reaching across the highway to hug one another, making a leafy green archway to drive through. In other places, the forest is thicker and lines both sides of the highway, looking mysterious and beckoning. I love these drives.
I’m driving so I watch where I’m going, of course, but at the same I sneak as many glances as I can through the trees. I’m not hoping to see a unicorn (not really) or a patronus but it’s so much fun to take a little trip to a fairy tale by looking at the trees gliding past on either side of the car.
*from the song, Castle, by Halsey
Read MoreIf I knew I could not fail, I would . . .
This is the game I like to play the way most people love to answer, “If I won the lottery I would…”
If I knew I could not fail I would:
— Write, handletter, and illustrate books
— Organize creative workshops
When I started writing, I imagined a much more complicated list. Until I took pen to paper I didn’t realize that doing two things, just two things, would mean winning my personal lottery, one that I could make happen rather than relying on chance.
Huh.
Just two things.
Read MoreThe ideas are worth being brave.
I’ve been waiting, waiting a long time to be a real creative business owner. I’ve been waiting for permission, waiting for the plan to arrive in neatly arranged steps, waiting until I’m ready. I talked about that here.
Making good art and taking good photographs and building a good website seems overwhelming. It feels like I’m not ready.
Since I don’t feel ready, that must mean it’s not time for me, right?
If it’s supposed to happen, it will just happen, right?
It’s time to trust that I’m the one who will make it happen. It’s time to count the fact that I’m the one who makes it happen as a gift; I get to make it happen! I don’t have to wait on anyone or anything else. I have permission to do and I have permission to try. It’s official: I wrote myself out a permission slip and everything.
In a wonderful bit of synergy and coincidence (both of which are Big Magic) a few hours after writing this, I read the chapter in Elizabeth Gilbert’s new book, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, about permission. The chapter is titled, I kid you not, Your Permission Slip.
Universe, I hear you! I want to be fair to the ideas and give them the chance to shine. I can’t hide them because I don’t know if they will work.
Of course I don’t know; no one knows.
This is no time to be timid. The ideas are worth being brave.
That’s my biggest marketing challenge – following through on the ideas that visit me. Do the best I can by those ideas and then share them with the world. How they’re received isn’t in my hands; I just need to do my part.
This post is a part of the Double Your Followers blog tour to spread the word about April Bowles-Olin’s upcoming CreativeLive course. Does hearing the word ‘marketing’ make your armpits start to drip with anxiety? Are you terrified of sounding salesy or like you have the personality of a dead blowfish? If so, come join me and 2,500+ entrepreneurs who’re taking April’s latest CreativeLive course, Double Your Followers with Creative Marketing. You can RSVP and watch for FREE. Yep, free. High fives, wildflowers, wine samples. Who doesn’t love free?
Here, a blizzard
We got eight inches of snow the other day. This happens…never.
Here in Mississippi, two inches of snow is remarkable.
Weather forecasters assured us we’d get 3 to 6 inches of snow. I did not believe them; The Weather Channel has broken my heart before with its promises of snow.
This time, though, it happened!
Bella was all, “Hey!!! What the heck is this??”
Like being inside a snow globe! A Currier & Ives print! If it’s a winter cliche, I thought it and said it. Multiple times.
Schools closed for two days. My work presentations were cancelled. It was heavenly, being at home with the snow and books. Then we lost electricity for 23 hours, which was slightly less fun. Although it wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been. We have a gas stove top and gas hot water heaters so the most important things – coffee and hot showers – we had.
Come on in, sit a spell!
The camellias are a shame. They were blooming, pink and sweet. (It’s supposed to be 71 degrees on Tuesday. Go figure.)
Every time I looked out the kitchen window, I said, “This snow. I cannot get over this snow.” Our driveway and two streets are under the snow in this picture.
I’m already thinking I will paint a watercolor from this photo for this year’s Christmas card.
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