Your Story Matters

A Sunday Short Post (on Saturday😆)

Good morning beloved reader,

It’s been 10 years since I began walking the writer’s path, and I have a sense that it’s now time for this book, The Rising of the Divine Feminine and the Buddhist Monks Across the Road: A Memoir, to be out in the world in physical form.

I worked in the publishing industry for 20 years, so you’d think I’d know some tips or tricks to getting my book out there. But I don’t think there are any shortcuts — or at least none that I’ve discovered. And the writer’s path is WAY more challenging than any work I ever did in publishing. Plus it’s only recently that, without having a published book and not being a journalist, the possibility of being paid for one’s writing has arisen. Thank You Paying Subscribers! And Thank You Substack for providing a way for readers to appreciate a writer’s work through hearts, comments, collaboration, and financial support, which writers value perhaps more than you may imagine.

The traditional way for a book to be published is through either finding the right literary agent who will sell the manuscript to one of the big five publishers in New York, or to submit directly to smaller, independent publishers. Alternatively a few writer friends I met through Vermont College of Fine Arts have gone the hybrid route through great outfits such as SheWrites Press.

Perhaps I’m just scared to get my book out there. I have a sense that it’s mainly fear that’s holding me back. Fear of being vulnerable. Fear of feeling exposed. Fear of my writing being judged.

I’m not so fearful of rejections as my work in the publishing industry showed me that rejections are simply part of the publishing game. I learned it’s about finding the right match. For example, through working in several different subsidiary rights departments at different publishers, I witnessed first hand how we may have sent a best-selling American book out to 20 French publishers, and received 20 rejections, before we found one French publisher who said yes.

This shows that even if a book is successful in one country, you still need to find the right match between an author and an editor, before the book can find its home at a publisher. And then it’s about finding the right match between the book and the readers.

One writer friend is very open about having received 165 rejections from the agents and publishers to whom she submitted her manuscript. Which often makes me think there has to be a better way. And maybe serializing on Substack is part of the better way. Although I’m now feeling that this book that has come through me, also needs to be available to readers in the physical form of a book too.

Perhaps my fear about being published in physical-book-form, is because there is a sense that you cross a point of no return. You can’t take it back once it’s out there in the world as a physical book.

“Eternity is far more creative than the rigid, constrained, and exhausted ego.” from Tosha Silver’s Divine Abundance Oracle cards

I’m extremely grateful to have received a scholarship for an online class I’m taking called Your Story Matters that’s offered through Sounds True Publishing, and is presented by a group called Conscious Marketers. One thing they said last week resonated deeply with me: “Don’t expect it to be easy. It will be uncomfortable at times.”

This may be the first time I’m bringing this idea into my conscious awareness that yes, there will be moments of discomfort when my physical book is out in the world. And that’s okay. I can live through the discomfort (she reassures her inner 6-year-old who is still terrified😉).

The Conscious Marketers also spoke about looking at your own intention when telling your story — investigating intention is also highly valued by the Buddhist monks across the road here.

Are you telling your story to help others and serve the highest good? Are you telling your story from your ego, or from your soul?

For me, it feels so much less risky to tell my story from my ego, and yet I’m aware my soul longs to be known. 

I’m also aware that my readers will be better served when I tell my story from my soul including all the struggles, not only the successes.

Perhaps it’s time for me to begin again with sending out queries for my manuscript to agents and to smaller publishers. In the meantime, please do invite your friends to subscribe to this Substack if they may be interested in surfing this wave of the Rising of the Divine Feminine. It’s a wild time to be incarnated as a human being on this planet!

And even with great turmoil in the world right now, it’s crucial that we cultivate gratitude, so Happy Thanksgiving! I’m giving myself the week off next week and will be back the week after. Have a wonderful holiday, and I’ll leave you with this fabulous quote from Rev. Dr. Stephanie Rutt:

“Remember how important it is to look at relationships not as a source for your happiness, but as a crucible for your own inner growth. They show you what your triggers are, and what you need to work on in yourself.
The paradox is that once you accept that and do the inner work, then it’s those very relationships that end up adding to your happiness.
The common experience is that when we spend time with people we love, we often feel that we’re in the crucible and the fire is getting hotter and hotter. And this is the gift.”

And I would also offer, this kind of inner work is the work of love.

May we all experience the fruits of our inner work.

And may we all experience spaces in the circle of life where our relationships add to our happiness✨🌟💖🙏🕊️