If you’ve been hoping to hear Happier Made Simple “read by the author”, you’ve got your wish! Soon it will be on Audible, but in the meantime you can get it through Kobo/Walmart
or Chirp!
here is a sample:
and – another one!
Enjoy!
Randye
Not my home, but a similar mess 🙂
Losing the tv remote can be a good thing. (Really, we didn’t fake it.) The morning was more creative, less argumentative, and they “forgot” to have the morning snack they usually think they need.
When I left Morning Radio, I swore I would never wake up before the sunrise again.
I’d earned it. 3:15 AM for eight years, seriously?
Yet here I am, coffee in hand, watching the sun rise through the trees outside my kitchen window.
For the second day in a row.
My brain wakes me up – to…what? write?
To write?
Am I, like, a writer now?
My meek self answers: Um, I guess so?
Sure, I’ve written a book or two. My first one was published ten years ago. It still sells, albeit modestly (there goes that meek voice again, oops). My latest book launches in 11 days, officially, and in this waiting period (truth be told, there is a lot to do, so not technically waiting) I have way too much time to second-guess myself.
As you can see, I write blog posts too. Not sure who reads them, but I write them.
Does that make me a “writer”?
I write to get my spinning brain to spit it out, organize the thoughts, refine the message, and share it.
It’s the sharing part that sometimes eludes me. Yes, good enough for me – but other people?
Here comes the too-familiar words that lock the door: Who am I to think that I have something of value to offer to the world? I’m not really a writer. Not really.
And, yet, I’m sitting here – well, writing.
Because, for some reason, I have to. So there, doubting inner voice.
So, for today, the message has changed, from Why me? To Why not me? To Of course, me!
I have to write today. The knock on the door was too loud to ignore this morning.
I want to learn to hear it more often, and open the door to embrace the muse, collaborate, and share the light.
Why do we hold ourselves back?
I think Elizabeth Gilbert and Jen Sincero are changing my (literal) dreams.
Take last night. I had the best dream.
(Ugh, yeah, I know Not a fan of dream stories either. #sorrynotsorry.)
Why so great, you ask? (of course you do. I’m making up both sides of this conversation)
What was great was that this dream was the opposite of the Actor’s Nightmare. We’ve all had these – could take different forms depending on what you do for a living – but the doubt is the same: you feel inadequate, unprepared, and expected to deliver.
For actors, it takes place onstage:, when (a) no one told you you had the part til now (b) you don’t know your lines because it isn’t your fault no one gave you a script!!! or (c) you’re naked.
In this dream, though. I felt invincible. What a nice change. I did not want to wake up.
In this dream, I was not perfect, not at all. Just me. And I felt like I belonged, no matter what. And I wanted to keep that feeling, to stay this confident and invincible, during my waking hours.
(Liz Gilbert, in her book, Big Magic, refers to this as a poet’s term: “the arrogance of belonging.”)
The plot was sort of like this: I’d thought I was meant to be at a tryout for a track team. Me, with 4 hip surgeries behind me and one leg weaker than the other (from nerve damage during one surgery). I cannot run. Literally. But I went anyway. To the track team tryout.
Because, why not?
Just to see what was up.