Story Charmer

Travel insurance. Check.
Hair dye. Check.
Video announcement. Check.

Announcing the destination TOMORROW! Stay tuned…

{ 0 comments }

So there’s a lot to do. Doesn’t everyone know it. A lot. To do. My particular lot just grew into a starburst blast of OH-MY-GOD.

I was happy a few weeks ago when a big fancy company hired me to be the copywriting voice of their big fancy project. I can balance this with the launch / pre-launch / launching-now-and-also-again-later-launch of Story Charmer, I thought. No problem.

But THEN, I got a call proposing I do something VERY big and VERY fancy, and I was so seduced by the big and fancy I couldn’t turn it down. And so now, my friends, I am scrambling like a Sunday morning egg to get my affairs in order.

Can anyone spare an elf?

There’s travel insurance to buy. New underwear to purchase. There’s hair to dye and–hello!–jobs to finish! There are stories to charm, blog posts to write, friends to call for help and thank you GOD for those friends, who are helping where they can.

In TWO weeks I hit the road. In a few days, I tell you where to…as soon as I get the camera… I am. Very. Excited. The job is a culmination of so many years and “lives” along those years, that I am looking back and thanking my circuitous path for being so, well, circuitous. All those interests and experiences will converge into one this summer…in 11 days, actually. Tick tock.

{ 14 comments }

I grew up with my nose in a book. A lot of books. So many books that my grandmother would get mad at me for not playing with my brothers on weekend beach trips in the RV.

But my brothers had nothing on Jondalar and Ayla. The Clan of the Cave Bear series was infinitely more interesting than seaweed and sand dunes. And I saw my brothers all the time. There were five in all.

One memorable summer, David and I joined our grandparents on a drive through the Southwest. My mom had taken me to the used paperback store to fill a box for the trip. An escapist herself, she knew the value of a box of unread books. From that box, Marguerite Henry’s stories about horses got me from our doorstep to the edge of the Grand Canyon.

The metal RV stair squeaked as we each stepped out. We took in the view, restless after all that driving. I looked up the canyon, down the canyon, across the canyon.

“Is that it?” I asked.

My grandma about threw me into it.

The hole in the ground was nothing like Stormy, Misty’s Foal. That story had its fingers dug into me, gripping, alive, waiting for me to find out if Misty would live through her harrowing birth. I calculated how long I’d have to stand there till I turned on my heel and went back to my book.

I was driven to distraction.

This summer I’ll be driven to distraction again. But not by books. I’ll be road trippin’. And tweeting. Blogging and chatting real time with hundreds of new friends.

The news is just about out, where I’ll be headed. It’s so close to public, I can see its outline. And there’ll be so much good stuff going on, I promised my grandma I’d keep the books at home. So maybe, people, you’ll tell ME stories. Of what you’re reading, what you’re doing, and what’s driving you to distraction…? People, place, thing…road.

Got a favorite story from the road?

I’ll show you mine if you show me yours!

{ 1 comment }

Inspired by Jessica Swift’s song from her 22-year-old self, I’m playing the game on her blog today.

Jessica hit on what matters: that we love to learn things about each other that we didn’t know, things that could relate us, or fill out our characters. Or I suppose send people running. But what better way to purge your party of people who don’t dig your diggability, and drain the passion from what you have to say? Your breath is a finite resource. Use it lovingly.

FYI, I am TOTALLY woo woo

I’m all astrological and alter-planey, intuitive and meditational, yogic and telepathically induced at times, slakelessly absorbent of shamanistic magicality. I love the woo, people!

My friends call me the synchronicity queen. Maybe it’s because I’m always listening and looking for answers outside myself. Curious about human behavior and patterns in nature and wanting to be one way but being so very definitely another. I listen. As a result of listening I get a lot more than I set out to get, like the strange little ear-ache that tells me someone from the other side wants to talk to me, or the dreams that show up in my waking life, ver batim weeks or years after having them…or that intuitive bell that says:

“Left. Turn left here, Pema.”
“I’m going righ–!”
“Left, Pema.”
“Errgh, grumble, pssh. Turning…oh my, wow, that’s, wow, fancy meeting you here, Answer-to-My-Prayers. You’re really giving me that job/sweeping me off my feet/introducing me to this new adventure…?”

I have my limits. Some woo is just too weird to contemplate. But maybe that’s the edge I haven’t tipped yet. And what is woo woo but the sylph-y edge of concrete and not, our own unknown. It’s that fuzzy place that resides between here and somewhere else, glimpses of which make me feel not alone…and strangely, make me feel the utmost calm about being out of control.

Who's got the woo?

What don’t people know about you?

{ 1 comment }