A lot of us tend to have negative thoughts looping through our minds. “I can’t do that.” Or, “Yes, but what if…?” Some of us might have a constant recording running telling us all the reasons we shouldn’t do something or even try it. And we may not even realize we’re thinking that way because we’re so used to it that it’s automatic.

Stop for a minute and think about the negative thoughts that are in your head. Are they true? If you heard them about someone else, would you believe them?

Probably not. I know that one of my constant issues is that I might be thinking, “I really shouldn’t do that because it isn’t okay,” but I believe it’s okay for anyone who isn’t me. How does that even make sense? If it’s okay for the other 6,999,999,999 people in the world, why isn’t it okay for me?

If you find yourself having thoughts like these, try this exercise:

Write down the negative thoughts on strips of paper.

Read one out loud. Think about how it sounds. Does it sound silly? Does it make you angry?

Now say (and write, if you want) a positive statement that counters the negative. For example, if you wrote “I can’t write a book because I’m not good enough,” you might say, “I tell really good stories and I’m smart enough to learn how to write well.”

Now tear up or burn the paper with the negative statement on it. And repeat these steps with all the rest of your strips of paper.

Remember this exercise any time you start to feel down on yourself or those negative recordings start up again in your brain. We all deserve to feel good about ourselves and to see the positive things in our lives. Hopefully this exercise will help you do that.

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When: Tuesday, April 4
Where: Online webinar
How long?: approximately 60 minutes, which includes Q&A time
Who: Taught by me
How much: FREE
What: An online webinar talking about energy work for creative people.

It doesn’t matter if you’re an author, an artist, a musician, or a crafter, creative people get burned out. As a writer, if you’re writing to deadline, sometimes the words won’t flow. Oh they have to if the writing is paying the bills, but we writers know how difficult writing can be when the muse is on vacation. The same thing happens to other creative people to. My hour-long seminar will teach you basic methods for working with and aligning the energy in your body so that your muse can be tapped in and turned on.

To register for this FREE event, click here.

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Many people think astrology is silly. How can the alignment of planets and stars in the sky really affect our personalities and what we do here on Earth? It seems so out of touch with the fact that we are born, and we never stray from our beautiful blue planet. And yet, when you look at things as if we are “star stuff” or that we come from a great cosmic universe, then those same planets and stars become the environment from which we were born and we all know how our environment shapes our personalities, our lives, and yes, even our future.

So have you looked at your astrological chart? If you haven’t, I recommend getting a free one done at a service like Astrolabe (http://alabe.com/freechart/). For a more indepth chart I love this free service at Psychic Science because it gives the house numbers as well within the chart. The house numbers can become very important when you’re taking a look at various aspects of your life.

Once you have your free chart, then read the explanations which come along with it. They will be basic, limited information, but they will give you a place to start. You can think about them. Do they seem to match your personality? Is something completely off about them? Our signs are only a guide; they are not the end-all, be-all to our personality, nor are they they absolute truth.

Most people, though, will see something of themselves in their chart and can use it to help gain greater understanding about themselves. Even a little tidbit of information might be enough to open up doors and bring about a new awareness. It might also be fun to look at the charts of your romantic partners or your family and see where you can find where the person’s personality matches up with their chart.

I would not do this as a final answer on anything. But, as we grow and change throughout our lives, a look at a natal chart, which is the snapshot of the heavens at the exact time we were born, might help us through a thorny problem or clarify a personality trait that confused us.

What do you need to get a natal chart?

1. Someone to draw it up or one of the free sites mentioned above.
2. Your exact birth day and time (am/pm), along with year. If you don’t have your exact time, be as close as you can.
3. Your exact birth place (i.e. what city were you in).

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Coming soon!

The Jupiter Frequency is a place where the authors and the publisher at Jupiter Gardens Press can share with you information and insights, and have a little fun. It will cover our  nonfiction and metaphysical fiction works as well as our young adult imprint, Jupiter Storm. And we’ll have a little bit of everything. I love doing videos, so we’ll have videos or audio works. We’ll also have guests from time to time. And, most of all, we’ll have fun.

So why The Jupiter Frequency? Honestly, I think it’ll be fun. Plus, as the author of nonfiction books, I find things throughout the day that I think would be cool to share. And now, I’ll have a place to share them.

So look for it coming soon! And if there’s something you’d like to see, let us know!

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Last time I talked about updating the energy in your office and mentioned you can use feng shui in the room, or even on your desk. So let’s break that down and look at just our desk. Then, you can apply those principles to the room itself, or even your entire home.

First, you need a bagua map. This is a map showing the various quadrants of a room and their associated colors. You can find many on google. Then, you’ll want to set this map on your desk, with the bottom row (the squares indicating knowledge, career, and helpful people) arranged so that you are sitting along that bottom row. (When working with an entire room, your doorway goes along that bottom row.) With the way desks are built today, you really don’t have a choice where your chair goes. For me, it’s on the lower, left-hand corner of the desk, which according to the map ends up being knowledge. Then, you can start arranging your desk according to the quadrants.

There are some fixed items, for example if you work on a laptop, have a computer monitor, or any large office equipment. And you’ll have to work with those the best you can. But if you can put your phone in the helpful people quadrant, then hopefully you’ll receive some great phone calls. Pictures in the family quadrant work well, as do awards or achievement in your fame quadrant. You can utilize your walls, too, and don’t be afraid to extend out your desk area with filing cabinets if you would want to sit in your career box (the middle) as opposed to one of the corners.

Take your time with this. It may take some time to settle into the energy of the room. (I know I did a bit rearranging of things on Saturday and today, Sunday, it still feels like a new pair of jeans. Great to experience, but not quite “broken in” yet.)

And don’t panic if something doesn’t quite fit in the corner you think it should. Do the best you can and try to go with an overall flow.

Avoid clutter. Doesn’t matter how your desk is arranged. Clutter definitely creates stagnant, messy energy.

If you’re not sure about applying the principles of feng shui to your entire home, start with your desk. Or a corner of your living room. Start small and expand it outward. See how it works for you, and don’t be afraid to let the energy flow.

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You know, if you’re like me, you probably live in your home office space. Most writers I know spend the same amount of time there as they would in a full time job. When I worked full time from home as well as worked on my own writing and Jupiter Gardens, well, the number of hours I spent in my den was easily double digits. Especially if you work a salary-type job from home in addition to your own work, it’s easy to let the energies of stress and frustration fill the room. On a physical level, clutter, bad arrangements, and a lack of space can also bring the energy down.

The good news is that it is easy to re-energize your office.

First, smudge! Use incense, actual sage smudge wands, candles, even breathing and visualization to get that bad energy out the window and bring in fresh, clean, workable energy. Do this on a regular schedule, and it’s good to do this when you physically clean your office as well. Taking time once a week to dust, vacuum/sweep and then smudging will help keep our office clean and energized.

Second, play with furniture arrangements. I recently swapped my parrotlet’s cage for a couple of filing cabinets which were under the window. My parrotlet now gets to look out the window and he’s closer to me, which means he’s more of a part of the “family” instead of across the room. (Though granted, my office is like 10 x11, so it’s not like he was ever that far away.) I moved the tv which was on the filing cabinets to the corner of my desk when some things that were there were removed, and just a quick, hour-long project made an immense difference in the energy.

You might want to look at feng shui to not only arrange your desk, but also arrange your room. Look at each quarter, what you want to put in it, and go from there.

Third, clean and organize. Running a business full time has left me with books, packing boxes, and all sorts of things in my den. Like the commercial says “Get up and play an hour a day!”, but in this case it’s “get up and clean an hour a day.” Make sure that you have organized and cleaned your office. Clutter only creates stopped and stagnant energy. If you have a big project (for example if you have a chronic illness and things have gotten behind), then break it down into manageable chunks. Thirty minutes, even fifteen a few times a day, will add up if you keep at them and soon your home will be clean and refreshed once more.

There really could be a fourth tip, and that’s watch your emotions. Being aware of when you’re stressed, frustrated, or otherwise engaged in negative emotions and working through and beyond those will help too. But hey, we’re human. It’s going to happen! So keep up on the cleaning and the smudging. Your office will thank you!

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We’re six days into the Ares waxing moon, and I have to ask, what have you done with this energy? You can feel it in the air can’t you? There’s a warmth to the days that have you contemplating whether you need that jacket, even if the thermometer only reads 33 degrees, or maybe that’s just me. The sun peeks over the horizon earlier every day, something my third shift schedule laments, though I know it’s inevitable, and what will allow me to get into my garden. Spring is coming. Spring storms already cross some parts of the country. We’re just about three weeks away from the Spring Equinox. The energy is there. What are you doing with it?

Now is the time to look at your New Year’s Resolutions, your goals and see where you are at with them. How are you doing? We all have “spring cleaning” sorts of things on our to do lists. How are you doing with those “someday” items? Read the rest of this entry »

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We’ve all heard the phrase buy local. But we’ve mostly heard it used in conjunction with physical items, like groceries, artisan items, or upcycled items that we can get in our local area. It’s where we talk about Farmer’s Markets, Co-ops, and other venues to help people learn to buy local, thus saving the resources that having something shipped halfway across the country would cost. (Being in Iowa, everything is “halfway across the country” for me.) But what does this phrase “buy local” or “shop local” mean in terms of ebooks.

Generally, there are three different places where customers can buy ebooks. First, there’s Amazon, B&N, and other big online sites, many of which have their own proprietary readers. I’d also include sites like Books on Board, FirstyFish, Smashwords or All Romance Ebooks/Omnilit in with the big sites, because they have such a huge variety of books.

Next, there are the mid-sized sites, sometimes catering to a specific genre or niche, like Rainbow Ebooks, which sells GLBT literature only, or Trapezium.

Finally, there are the publishers. Not all publishers choose to go the publisher-direct route for sales, so many of them distribute through the mid-size and larger distributor.

Considering that the customer may be thousands of miles away from the publisher or vendor, what does it really mean to buy local or shop local when it comes to ebooks? Read the rest of this entry »

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Please forgive me for tooting my own horn…

When a book is released, an author sometimes waits anxiously for reviews. At least, I do. I want to find out what readers think of the story that I’ve worked so hard to get out into the world.

Sometimes the reviews don’t happen. I have a few books out that haven’t had a single review, despite being out for months. Sometimes the reviews are done, but aren’t as good as the author might want to see.

And sometimes a book is reviewed well after the release date, and it’s an awesome review.

I got one of the last kind this week. Flamingnet.com, a site where teens review books, did a review of Cutting Cords, book 3 in my YA urban fantasy series Reality Shift. The reviewer was a thirteen-year-old, who gave the book a rating of 8 out of 10 and said it was “amazing.” (You can read the full review at Flamingnet.com.)

Getting  a good review is always wonderful. Getting one from a teenager, though, is even better in my opinion. After all, I write the books mostly for teens, and I want to know if teens like the books–or if they have problems with them. Usually the only teenagers I get feedback from are my daughters’ friends, and they’ll tell me they like the books just because they know me.

I’m really excited that Cutting Cords got a review this long after its release (which was in March 2011) and that the reviewer liked it.

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So a few days ago I talked about finding what makes you happy and pursuing it on a daily basis. But if you’re like me, then thinking of those things that you do just for you can be tough. I know helping my mom with chores, for example, makes me happy, because I like helping her. (And I know she appreciates the help.) But, I don’t do it for me. I do it for mom, and it has the side benefit of making me happy too.

So how can you find those things that you do for you.

Brainstorm. Mind Map even if that’s your thing. Or some combination of the two.

Take a piece of paper, make it a pretty color if you can (or just white, but why not up the fun factor of this one). In the middle draw a circle. Inside the circle write your name and “HAPPY”.

Now, in the space around the circle, write all the things that make you happy. It doesn’t matter where, or how far out you write them. Just do it.

Somewhere along the line you’re going to realize that you do more than you think to make you happy. For example, my putting down “playing my clarinet” (which elicits a lot of laughter these days), lead to writing “singing” (yes, I’m a Gleek! And I was in choir/jazz choir in school.), and then I realized “hey, I sing in the car ALL THE TIME.” Seriously, if you drove past me on the interstate, I’d be belting out anything from Godsmack to Phantom of the Opera to Enya. Seriously. But that’s something I do for me (really, because I hope no one else sees me, LOL!), and it’s something that I do that makes me happy and relieves stress.

Playing with the family pet can make you happy, and if it’s just you, the puppy, and a rope tug, then you’re not trying to make your partner or your children or anyone else happy. You’re just having fun! (You’re also exercising your dog, but I think you get the point, especially if there are others who give the dog its needed exercise.)

So get out that piece of paper. Write down all those things, and I think you’ll find that you have more joy in your life than you thought. And that’s how you mind map your way to happiness!

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