Tag: author

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enough Listen to my heart

Enough And No Further

This is just a good excuse to put a photo of my friend Tessa on my blog post. She has been very ill and since before lockdown wasn’t able to get to the sea side. She lives about 50 miles inland and it was all too much for her. Well she has since been diagnoised and getting treatment so my daughter and I took her on the train to her nearest seaside just to show her she could do it. This was the place on our walk on beach where she said “that’s enough. I’d like to turn round now.” So enough and no more. [Picture was taken about 11.30am but it was a dark old day!]

Today I was reading a book about women in history. I had been struggling along with it and its many references to Mother Goddess. Not because I believe God is male but more because it was being placed as a fact. I then reached a line which quoted John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was God”. It went on to say that this was a lie and that history had invent him.

Now as I’m sure I’ve mentioned in previous blogs I think we’ve missed something amazing by giving God a gender and that when the Bible says about how God made man and women in God’s image then God must be male and female, all genders and none. So I’ve got no issues with the argument that God isn’t a “he” but I do have issues with then the creator god being a “she” as though that makes it alright.

But the for me what has made me stop is that sometimes we all have to say “enough and no more”. It is not that I want to make this author believe that God is male but also I find that I reach a point in reading where I had to say this is enough for me and put the book down. I come across this sometimes in historic books or programs, where I feel that author or presenter has gone too far off piste and I am not ready to go with them.

My son used to ski. My husband went out to join him once. My son skis off piste. My husband doesn’t. My husband had to go his way and let my son go his own. Both within their comfort zones so to speak.

So it isn’t that I am not open minded. I hope that I am. But sometimes it gets to a point where I am not ready to go as far as the author or presenter and you know that is ok. So I would not say this author is wrong, but I would say, like with my friend and the walk on the beach, that this was enough and I’d like to go back now.

I was reading some stuff about listening to your heart and going with your gut feelings and how too often we don’t do that. Well for me my heart says that is enough and so I will listen to it. Something I am learning more and more to do.

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Little Yellow Boat social media technology The little yellow book video

The Little Yellow Boat Makes A Video

The Little Yellow Boat book by Diane Woodrow on the sand with small footprints around it.

The Little Yellow Boat and I have been busy over the last few weeks. We’ve been working with a local film maker to get a promotional video made for The Little Yellow Boat book. It is now ready and scheduled for release on Saturday 15th May. I will put the link up here on Saturday morning as I’m not quite sure how to link to my YouTube site as yet. Hopefully that will come once the video is live.

As you will know from my post Be Who You Really Are, it has been a challenge for me to say what I wanted. Or more precisely to know what I wanted. But once I got my head round that I was able to keep sending the video back and forth to the maker until I had what I wanted.

Though my struggle now is with technology. I think I’ve got the site sorted and I think it will work on Saturday and so would really appreciate all my followers clicking on the link when I post it up, around 11am GMT, just so I know it works. I will also post it on my Instagram page and Facebook page and hope for the best.

There are still many things with YouTube, Facebook and Instagram I am grappling with but hopefully it will all come together.

There is much more to publishing if you want to get sold than just writing the book!!

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calling GodspaceLight writer writing

Coming into my calling!

So how did I get from posting for myself to sharing?

From a workshop I did in my local library about a month before lockdown

I have always written. I remember as a young teenager writing stories and sharing them on the school bus with friends. I wrote a play about Thomas a Becket instead of an essay for my pre-O level history class, which I was told was great but I needed to get the language more in period. If only I could find that play now I would not change the language style but would go with it as it was – 11th Century drama with contemporary voices. But unfortunately is has gone. Even when I decided to do a degree later in life I went for history with creative writing. I am a writer but I have hidden that from myself. Or rather haven’t been willing to push through. I write lots but I very rarely push through and edit or try and find a publisher or a competition or any outlet for my work. But things have changed.

During lockdown I have had time to moan, to grumble, couldn’t find my creativity or my motivation, and also wondered what I’m going to do with the last third of my life. [I’ve had my 59th birthday during lockdown] But through it all I did journalling, emailing, started writing courses, met up with friends on Zoom silent writing gatherings [where we all sign on and say Hi and then mute and write for 2-3 hours then say how we’ve done and go have lunch]. But something was stiring.

I have a great friend who does amazing inner healing stuff. She lives in South of England, me in North Wales, so we meet via Zoom. She’s good at creativing a calming atmosphere over cyberspace. This last time highlighted my writing and I came away really believing that my calling is to be a writer. In fact to be an author. And from there things have started to open up. It isn’t magic. I have to do my bit. So I finished a story about “the truth of this virus” and have found a competition for it which means editing it from 3500 words down to 2000. I’m up for the challenge. I submitted 20/20 Perfect Vision to https://godspacelight.com/blog/ – and when you look you’ll see that they have edited it. Now if they had done that before I had had this time of both lockdown and inner healing I would have been hurt by it but today I am really pleased with how it looks. My work but their site, their brand.

I used to be afraid of editing especially other people doing it. I saw it as a personal attack, which is daft but that is how it felt. Like they were attacking me and not helping me with my work. As well as the editing on GodspaceLight I also recieved an email from a friend who has critiqued this “truth of the virus” story and again recieved in the manner it was sent – with love and support.

I have more work to do which I am excited about not overwhelmed; a children’s story that a friend is illustrating that it is my task to find a publisher; a fun bit about my husband builidng a eagle’s lair in his office which I shared the idea on a writer’s forum and have been given a website to share the story on; as well as this other post for GodspaceLight and the “truth about the virus” story.

And because of the clearing out of the junk that was holding me back from editing and completing any work I feel energized, creative and motivated. Finally I am stepping up into my calling – and funnily enough it is not all those other things i thought it might be 🙂 But that is for another post 🙂