Lately I’ve been trying to focus on my disaster fantasy novel. I’d like to finish it, get an editor to look at it, really perfect it, and then get it published. Just read Be your own Literary Agent which gave me lots of ideas on how to jump start this whole thing. It really gave me hope, although I realize getting a novel published is really really really difficult. But the book gave tons of examples of authors who worked without an agent (sometimes self-publishing and selling their books out of cars) that are now very successful. Names such as John Grisham, James Redfield, and E. Lynn Harris.

Then this article in the Times about a fantasy writer whose book was picked up for a movie really gave me a lot of hope. So I really need to get cracking with this, and while it is going to be a real challenge, I feel like if worst comes to worse I can publish it online. I’m really excited. I wish that nanowrimo let you participate if you want to continue writing a novel but the rules say you have to start a new one, so I guess I’ll have to find some other way of motivating myself to finish this thing.

I was thinking today as I went for the 6th time to Best Buy to get my piece of crap ipod fixed that we are all so disconnected and fragmented in modern life. I go into Best Buy to get my ipod fixed, and another company named Geek Squad handles it. And they send my ipod back to apple. Then someone at apple puts in a new hard drive. Then it gets shipped back to Geek Squad and then to me. I never see the person who’s fixing it. It breaks a week later. There’s no accountability and no connection. But who can blame the guy who sits in a factory all day putting hard drives in ipods? He’s not a robot. He needs a real human connection to the work he’s doing. And I want to just be able to talk to him. Like the days when you went into a TV repair shop and shook hands with the guy who would fix your TV.

That’s what hit me about the book Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance, was that many of us are so disconnected from what we do nowadays. Without any connection or passion for what we do, we just end up hating it and can’t even concentrate on it. We turn our minds off and do a bad job.

Money is something that most everyone worries about at one time or another. It can be the sole reason you go to work, or can be an excuse not to do something you really want to do. Or you can start to feel like the universe is abundant and that you can always create what you really want in life. That’s the premise of Creating Money, a really great book that will change your whole outlook on money.

But first you have to get past the fact that it’s written by Orin and DaBen, two spirit guides who speak through their human authors. And the 70s-esque cover which I’m not going to even put on this website because it’s just too cheesy. But if you can suspend the little voice inside you saying “these guys are crazy hippies and this is all too out there for me” you’ll really get a lot out of this book.

According to the book trusting in yourself and the universe, and putting that energy out there, is what will bring you more abundance. Worrying about money and feeling like there’s never enough will just keep you in a place where you won’t attract something better. And following your dreams, even if it seems like it won’t pay off financially at first, will always bring you more money and success than staying in a safe job or situation that isn’t right for you.

John O’Donohue is an amazing author of books which explore celtic pre-christian notions of spirituality. His works are a real antidote to our fast-paced consumerism culture. My favorite of his is Anam Cara, which means soul friend in Gaelic. He talks about the importance of friendship, deep and intense friendships which develop over a lifetime. And he really encourages the reader to be true to their own buried yearnings and to know themselves better. He feels that the highest purpose for us is to be creative. A really inspiring read.

“A friend is a loved one who awakens your life in order to free the wild possibilities within you.” John O’Donohue, Anam Cara

I tried to get through the Artist’s Way but I just couldn’t. I think I got to chapter 4. Is this because I’m creatively blocked? Or because I have trouble sticking with projects to the end? Or perhaps The Artist’s Way just doesn’t work for me. It’s a little heavy on the religious aspect, and I don’t mind delving into spirituality a bit, but it seems to focus on religion in a heavy-handed way. Or perhaps it’s just too big a commitment, like taking a class, because you need to devote so much time to it. I only have one friend who actually finished it so I know I’m not the only one. So, has anyone reading this ever finished the Artist’s Way? Has it worked well for anyone out there, changed their life, made them an uber-creative person?

A fascinating book which at times gets far too bogged down in the author’s own self-analysis, On Not Being Able to Paint nevertheless comes to some amazing conclusions about what can stop creativity. She talks about the fear to create a piece of artwork and how it often seems like a life-and-death situation, when really, it isn’t at all. After all you can just tear up what you made if you don’t like it. And how it’s really difficult to teach someone how to paint with rhythm and real feeling in a painting. Because that comes from within, from a deeper place, and can’t be taught.

The significance of an art school for an artist, she feels, is not in teaching certain painting techniques but in offering a safe framework and space in which the artist can work. That really resonates with me because going to my art classes once a week really helped me stay creative and keep putting something down on canvas. Whether it was crap or not, which sometimes it could be.

I just love Sarah Susanka. She really gets it right when it comes to houses. Her Not So Big House series of books just rocks. Her whole premise is that new houses being built are far too big, and the spaces inside them end up being impersonal and unusable. And that a lot of older houses are not built for the way we live today, with someone in the kitchen cooking while chatting with their family or guests. Susanka’s solution is the Not So Big House, which really makes the best use of a small amount of space.

I love her suggestions for cozy nooks, especially the book nooks where you can hide away and relax or read, while looking out the window. And closed-in porches where you can enjoy fresh air even in the rain or the dead of summer with mosquitos all around. In today’s world of McMansions her approach is so refreshing, to move to a more sustainable method of building and maintaining houses.

So some friends are finally reading my unfinished novel that I started 3 years ago during National Novel Writing Month. I am so excited! I’m getting lots of good feedback and it’s making me want to continue writing and rework some parts. Maybe I’ll do the National Novel Writing year…

I’m reading The Great Influenza and what is most striking about it to me is what was going on in America during WWI under President Wilson. If we think things are bad right now with Bush, which they absolutely are, it was ten times worse in 1918.

Anyone that spoke out against the war or the government could be put in jail, and many were. There was a horrible plague of influenza striking all across the country and killing millions but the newspapers only reported that great strides were being made with vaccines (which was really false) and that fear is the greatest enemy and not to panic. Bodies were piling up in the morgues and almost every family had a death from influenza but the newspapers just said “don’t panic” because they didn’t want morale and support for the war to go down.

A great book although gets a little too in detail with the science of Influenza for me. But it was fascinating to see how Wilson turned America into a war machine with no room for dissent. It’s scary to think how this could totally happen again today. The government would not be able to deal at all with an epidemic of this magnitude again.

The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History