Kid friendly Open Full Moon schedule (Walnut Hill Community Church) 2025 OFM Potluck and Pagan Wiccan Ritual Saturdays Denver Colorado 80205

Announcing three big things: Future blog updates will be on Confessions of an American Witch. There is a Child Friendly Open Full Moon Saturday in the Denver, Colorado 80205 area, being hosted by a public school teacher. Oh most importantly, it's being held at Walnut Hill Alchemy (2727 N. Cook St.); we are just north of the Denver Zoo and City Golf Course. It's residential area. As my ghost dad says, "Business in the front, living in the back." Yes, I have gone back into sin--selling herbal magick kits again.

Disguised as a normal muggle house.

Yeah, I have gone back to being a slut minister. And by that, I mean purely by accident, I read the homepage of the community church that I used to be a gang member of.

"Suggested donation: Twenty dollars. Do not inebriated."

With no indication of what the Capital Hill Open Full Moon Friday theme will be about. 

I can do better. What to see better? My wife, Khari, is a public school teacher. We just brought a grape vine. On a Saturday. The fifty-eighth birthday of my ghost wife.

Yes, I have a ghost wife now. Cassandra Ravenspell. My life's complicated. New blog. 

Anyways, here's the Walnut Hill Community Church Open Full Moon Saturday 2025 schedule.

Walnut Hill Open Full Moon Saturdays

2025 free to attend, kid friendly, medical marijuana minister pagan Wiccan Norse Egyptian events

We borrow from many things.

May 10 (Botanic Garden Field Trip)

June 14 (Drumming)

June 21 (Golden Dawn Outer Order/RC Inner/Justice 42/Edgar)

July 12 (Hotdogs, popsicles and pools . . . blame Khari)

August 9

September 6

October 4

November 1 (Day of the Dead . . . again Khari)

December 6 (Yule ornament . . . shop will have kits for sale)

Hosts: Walnut Hill Church

Morgan Drake Eckstein (licensed minister)

Khari Seshat Meret (school teacher/ ceramic artist)

Location: 2727 N. Cook St., Denver, Colorado 80205

We are just north of the city zoo and golf course complex in a residential area. "Walnut Hill" is the name of the housing development that our house is located in. Originally, every lot had a black walnut tree. A disease killed all of the trees . . . except we have one. Fighting on. Hence Walnut Hill This and Walnut Hill That and Walnut Hill XYZ on every company in my neighborhood. 

When: Gate open at 5 pm for workers; 6 pm for the potluck; 7 pm for the main event; we close at 10 pm . . . because we are in a family neighborhood.

Kid friendly is a relative term. I might be radioactive shop owner.

Now, that we have advertised Khari's most important stuff, she wanted me to waste time on Facebook to announce that I am cohosting events with her. I believed that I have reached more people. As in horrified more mothers. Here. Than on Facebook. I think. 

Because I used to blog here a lot. By blog here a lot, I mean, I used to offend some of you a lot. I could tell by the richness of the language that you used in my comment section. 

Then Khari made me quit blogging, go off to college, get an education, and I accomplished nothing. Peeked in here, the other day while she out of town, learning stuff for Bearfest, being slave to the future of pagan and Wiccan children, and I was shocked to see traffic. 

If only I could figure out how to turn eyeballs into dollars, but I ain't that smart. 

No, I am falling back on my Retirement Plan--writing slutty science fiction. 

Oh, trying to sell herbs at my wife's OFMs. "C'mon, you need mugwort. Persian catmint."

No? Sad face. How about a course called Rocky Mountain Egyptian Godforms "originally priced at $360 for a thirteen week course, cohosted by Hierophant Khari." No?

Just for that, you have to punch in Confessions of an American Witch into your favorite search engine on your own. Because you didn't throw money at Khari. I tell you that she is Second Order Golden Dawn. Not going to be Hermetic. Something Egyptian. Good times. But it's a new blog, a new voice, a new outlook; we have a grape vine. 

A grape vine, named after one of Khari's students. Because during Teacher's Thanksgiving Week, his family gave Khari, a gift card that covered the cost of the grape vine. Of course, having just read the website of a church that threw me out under Safe and Sober, while celebrating of life of a dead mentor, having barely escaped Hell myself last year, secretly having a daughter (maybe), buying a grape vine set off a lot in my head.

Oh well, I picked up the blogging needle again. Just a different home. 

But Facebook? Really? Nah.

I see no intention in this little vine to rule the world, do you?

Remodeling update (production schedule delay)

A quick update for those who are curious about the house and yard remodeling.

The fallen tree was removed.

A metric ton of newspapers have been culled from the house.

This is despite the fact that I got sick the week and a half before the windows and doors were due to be installed. (Actually I am still slightly sick, but I did manage to get a lot of stuff done.)

Just the tip of the trash iceberg.

For those who don't know, our house is almost a hundred years old, and therefore automatically has lead paint. All of which means that everything had to be boxed up and/or wrapped in plastic.

Oh look, a thin layer of cement over brick--no wonder I can't hammer nails into the wall. 

Yes, I know that I "could have" done it "cheaper" by doing it myself. But my wife decided to spring for professionals, and who am I to argue with her? Especially given the fact that I really want to start to work on Icarus.

Here is to paying professionals to deal with the job.

The advantage of hiring professionals is that they can do it faster and better. So instead of taking a thousand years doing it myself, they managed to get the three new doors and the four upstairs windows done in three days.

Still have the four basement windows to do, but that needs to wait until I finish boxing up the basement. I have decided to do that in two stages because of how much plastic wrapping needs to be done downstairs.

We still have to get the new sidewalk in (goodbye Sidewalk of Death) and the outside painting done--it is scheduled to be done before the Fourth of July.

Both me and Khari are looking forward to the work being done, and our first garden (drumming) party later this summer.

(And I am thinking about the possibility of teaching a few occult and witchcraft classes...we will see how it goes.)

How many cats can fit in the window?

For those who are eager to see me get more stuff done (Esoteric Comedy Show, Great Gherkin/Sister Seuss, the expansion of the three officer ritual book, etc.), everything is being delayed. Besides the outside work still to be done, it has been decided that some of the rooms in the house are going to get painted, and new bookcases built--mainly because this is the first time, Khari has seen me be able to deal with such things without suffering blinding panic attacks (ask me about how meds can help).

And then there is Icarus... (which deserves its own post.) Oh yes, Icarus is coming.

That Ebook Bastard (Why I have embraced ebooks)

One of the joys of teaching the occult, or at least being one of the louder people in the room, is that you can install all types of silly ideas into those who accidentally come within the sound of your voice. Ideas that the rest of the occult community, or at least a significant portion, will insist are really bad ideas and that the person who convinced them that these were good ideas should be flogged with an angry cat. Typically, the flogging are reserved for ideas like “Getting sponsored by a legitimate occult group is highly over-rated and may not be worth the price of having to hate the same people as the head of the sponsoring group.” No, I do not make many friends, for I am that whack job. I have made a list of things I believe that I really should not, simply because I am one of the few that feels this way.

The other day I had to add something new to my list. Not really new—it is just that I hadn’t made a certain business decision yet that puts me firmly in the “Does not believe what the majority of the occult community believes and therefore, he is really, really wrong.” Now that I have made the decision, let the flogging begin.

But long before the business decision was actually made, I was already wrong. Let me give you a quick illustration.

One of my occult writer friends recently published a new occult book and was advertising it on Facebook. I hopped over to the Amazon page to take a look. I was mildly curious, and just maybe thought that I might buy a copy to help my friend out (because I know how Amazon sales ranking works). Yet upon learning that the book was not available in convenient and more economical ebook form, I choose to spend my money on a bundle pack about a cowboy who rides a unicorn instead. (Unicorn Western—if you are curious.) Bottom line, while I was mildly curious about my friend’s book, I was not that curious.

Yes, I have become the Ebook Bastard. That bastard who likes all his class handouts to be in convenient ebook form—preferably in Kindle format, thank you very much. And who plans on issuing all his future handouts on Amazon, for those people who do not live in reasonable distance of my charming voice. The bastard who believes that printed occult books, well printed books period, have become a shrinking niche market, and not worth the effort to format unless they are picture and chart books. I would totally consider buying a pop-up book; but if it is just words and a few pictures, ebooks are now my preferred format.

It is not just price, and not having to find space on a bookshelf for another book (“Look, I just brought nine novels and my Kindle is exactly the same weight as it was before I brought those books”), it is some of the stuff that I can as an author that really makes me a supporter of ebook technology.

For those who have not seen my work, I tend to write stuff that less than a hundred people in the entire world will be interested in. The likelihood of a traditional gatekeeper publisher deciding to put my work in print is about the same as me suddenly sprouting wings and becoming an angel. And that is totally ignoring the fact that I am open about some of my opinions; you try to get a traditional occult publisher to publish your stuff when you are openly stating in your book that you are pro-pot.

The bottom line is that my stuff is only suitable for self-publication. Nevertheless, even as a self-publisher (I prefer the term “indie”), I could go the print route, as my friend did with his latest occult book. So why didn’t I? Because I can do things with ebooks that I can’t do with printed books.

(A quick aside—all the editing and support that a traditional publisher provides, or should provide, can be done by an indie directly, or paid for by the indie. A self-published book can be as good as a book that was vetted by a traditional gatekeeper publisher.) For instance, I have a couple books (really short books—articles really) that I have planned on expanding for years (code-named Bootstrap and Walking the Wheel). To do this with a print versions, I have to not only buy a proof copy (or several if I don’t get it right the first time), everyone who currently has brought a copy would have to buy a new copy to read the new material added. Now, there are some that will argue that having customers buy new copies makes sound business sense. But in my mind, it doesn’t.

First, there are things that I originally thought about putting in the book that I didn’t…because I didn’t have time to. Getting the information out was more important than getting it perfect the first time. And let’s be honest, the core information in the book would still not be available today if I waited for perfection. It was better to issue the information for the interested parties, and plan on updating later.

Second, I learned and developed the core idea over the last eleven years since I first released the currently available version or Bootstrap (likewise for Walking the Wheel, which was released a couple of years ago). The readers that I would most like to read my developments are actually those who used the information in the first place. And with an ebook, I can be reasonably sure that those who brought the ebook though legitimate retailers will get the updated material. Such an immediate updating and ensuring that it gets to the people who brought the first version is easy with an ebook, and impossible with a printed book.

Third, I consider those who have used the material from the first edition of the books to be a community. I like my little community—occasionally, people thank me for releasing the information which gives a small thrill every time it happens. These are my tribe, and I don’t see how annoying them by making them buy a whole new copy at a higher price tag would be productive. (Yes, if I add a hundred pages of material, the price is so going to be increased.) I released the information that is the backbone of Bootstrap because it was my solution to a reoccurring problem, a solution that I still believe in. Updating the existing ebook, rather than creating a whole new edition, is more supportive of the idea and the community that uses the idea than being a writer scrabbling after nickels and dimes.

(Another aside—yes, I know that there are those who believe that if I was really supportive of the occult community that I would just release the information for free and not charge a dime for it. To these critics, I would like to point out that I am a professional writer and what I am charging is far less than what the some legitimate occult leaders charge for their support. On the day that the world abolishes money and everyone gets a guaranteed livelihood, I will quit charging; but until then, I have bills to pay.)

Fourth and most importantly, by updating the ebook and not creating a new listing, I get to keep all the existing links to the books. And the work I have done over the years to promote the books (blog posts and linking to the sales pages) carries over to the new expanded versions. I don’t lose my current sales numbers, and get to add to them instead. Try doing that with a new print edition that is a hundred pages longer and is essentially a brand new book.

And that is the crux of the matter, I can do things with ebooks that I simply could never do as a writer with printed books. It does not matter that “Real books are made with paper” and that “One should not never use a Kindle while performing ritual”; what matters is that ebooks allow me to give my customers a better experience.

Because of that, I am truly that Ebook Bastard.

(And no, I am not telling which two books I am updating. If you can't guess from the code names, then you are obviously not part of the existing tribe that I am updating them for.)

Maybe if it was a touch bigger. 

Now on stage reading the Tarot (Secret project not so secret anymore)

Previous/ MasterList/ Next

Welcome to the Imbolc edition of the Tarot Blog Hop. (Year seven!!!) Our wrangler, Aisling the Bard, asked us to do a Tarot spread in honor of this Solilune (a combination of Solar and Lunar Festivals)--a full moon on a solar holiday--to see what our coming year is going to be like.

Uhhh...I have been religiously avoiding all forms of divination, especially readings concerning the future, since 4:13 pm on December 2nd.

Long story short: I started a project that was supposed to be a one-off project. One installment, that's it. Just a little something to show anyone crazy enough to invite me to speak at an esoteric convention, exactly what type of lecture I would give. (Hint--it is more of stand-up comedy act than an actual occult lecture.)

How likely is it that I would need such a script? Oh, more likely than you would think. It was the strangest thing to be asked to speak when I didn't even consider myself a F-List Occult Expert. And my first time being asked--more than a decade ago at this point. The cherry on top? More than one person has asked me if I wanted to do this since then.

Anyways, this "short one-off project--just need an hour script" has chewed up at least an half hour everyday since December 2nd, as well as several ten hour days. Most of it on installments that I had no idea were in me.

And while the question of "Am I wasting my time working on this?" has came up--in my mind--because I have the voices--in particular, my mother's voice--I have religiously avoided looking into the future (beyond a few "What else is possible?" moments) since I started the project.

It is not that I don't want to know as much as it is that I don't want to hear the statement that I am probably wasting my time before I finish building my sales funnel for this project (that's three installments for the non-selling stuff on the internet crowd).

"How about we finish the funnel before we go looking for bad news?"

Short story long: I already have enough abandoned projects to last me a lifetime.

So let's do a Tarot reading, shall we?

Foundation

Seven of Swords, Knight of Wands, Five of Swords.

"Opps, I scanned those cards in the opposite order..."

The Foundation is where the focus is going to be for the year ahead.

Land (Body): Five of Swords...could this be fighting migraines and the voices in my head. Hopefully, because otherwise this could be that the villagers have found some flaming torches and pitchforks. Oh wait, that might just be the voices in my head. Or maybe I am going to upset people.

"We will never know."

Sky (Mind): Knight of Wands...this card reminds me of the Marvel Comic's version of Loki. That is probably...probably...is there any way to read this card in a manner where that would be a good thing?

"There are the gods of comedy, and they bring us fresh gifts every day on Facebook, just look at the trendings..."

Sea (Spirit): Seven of Swords...is it too late to just grab my toys and slip off quietly in the night? Is it wrong to make jokes about the occult community? Will the occult community get upset?

"For once, after completing a project, I would like to cash in--but the pawn shop says that there is no market for a smart ass and his jokes in today's occult market."

Construction

Knight of Cups, Four of Cups, The Empress.

"Oh, I scanned these cards in the wrong direction also."

The Guardian (What is the energy of the new path that presents itself?): The Empress...my mother or my aunt?!? Both? My mother's bad attitude (judgmental!) and my aunt's religion (a witch of the 1970s Wiccan type).

"Can you tell jokes about witches and not sound judgmental?"

The Guide (From what do I need protection on this journey?): Four of Cups...and that would be an inclination towards depression and abandoning projects. That would be the "down pole" of my bipolar.

"Have I mentioned the voice of my mother yet? And how it continues to echo in my head?"

The Gateway (What energies of my own or of the spirit will guide and protect me?): The Knight of Cups...is it just me or does the version of the card look a little depressing?

"And under my depression, there is this happy little cynic who is not surprised by how crap the human race is. Yes, I know that I should be uplifting, celebrating life, toasting humanity's greatness...but I am having trouble seeing it at the moment. I have mentioned the trending topics on Facebook?"

Surprise

Three of Swords, Six of Cups, Two of Pentacles.

"It takes real talent to scan three rows of Tarot cards in the wrong direction. You can't learn to do that in school."

Surprise--light one lantern if the surprise is coming by land: Two of Pentacles...this particular version of this card tells us that no matter how successful and entertaining of a performer you are, you can't make everyone happy.

"My wife just pointed out that the wall, or is it a stage?, has four faces on it--three happy, one angry...nice to know that I am going to sell four whole copies, and get at least one negative review...[Inner Neophyte's voice] because that wouldn't encourage me at all."

Surprise, surprise--light two lanterns if the surprise is coming by air: Six of Cups...in no way does this card remind me of one of my sisters (or more than one of them), and I am confident that they would never check out my current project.

"Which means that I am totally stealing the Hot Dog Surprise and telling people about its culinary delights."

Surprise, surprise, surprise--light three lanterns if the surprise is coming by sea: Three of Swords...because this is always a happy card. Keep your bags packed--have ransom demands ready--be prepared to do battle.

"Just noticed that there are skulls in the snow. You know that it is going to be a fun surprise when there are skulls in the snow."

And there we go--everything you need to know about a reading that I have been avoiding for the last two months...

"Along with some creative mis-readings to lure me into a false sense of security. Because that is what you want from a Tarot reading, reassurance that you are not going to blow yourself up while using high explosions. Never mind reading the directions. Never mind that you do not know the language that the directions are in. Never mind that the illustrations seemed to have been printed in the wrong order. Just keep pounding on that stick of dynamite with a hammer. What could possibly go wrong? We will never know."

Previous/ MasterList/ Next

New Year Wishes (Tarot Blog Hop)

Previous/ MasterList/ Next

Welcome to the Yule 2017 edition of the Tarot Blog Hop. Our wrangler, Ania, asked us to consider what card best represented our past year, and what card best represented our wishes for next year.

Death--sitting on a pile of past decisions and events while looking for a way to move forward. 

2017 was a year of Death for me. Literal death.

Early in the year, the president of the board of Hearthstone Community Church, Alia Denny died. That shook me up. Well, it shook the whole board up--not just me. The most basic of questions, such as "Would Hearthstone continue without Alia?" had already been answered. (Yes, it would--that is why we had a full board for the administration of the church.) Other questions, such as "With Alia gone, does Morgan still get to walk around and act weird?" are still being answered. (Honestly, I used Alia as a safety net--I got to be odd while she held down the respectable community member role--along with the other board members.) I have been considering my role in the local Wiccan/pagan community ever since she has died--"Do I want to take a bigger role in the community? Do I need to? Would the community be better off without me?"

Then my mother-in-law committed suicide, due to health issues, during the summer. Donna was my wife's best friend--her and my wife loved one another very much--shopping together, they went on vacation once together to Yellowstone. My wife and my brother-in-law took her death hard. And I was surprised how much it stirred up my own issues (my ongoing mental illness--depression, low self-esteem, suicidal thoughts, occasional roller coaster mood swings). I was more deeply affected by these two deaths than the death of my own mother a couple of years ago. As for my wife, some days are better than others--the best I can do is try to be supportive.

It is that "try to be supportive" part that has been the hardest for me. I don't come from a family that taught one to be supportive. Or maybe it was just my place in the family. Basically, my role was to sacrifice everything, including my own desires, for the good of my mother and my siblings. As such, I never feel that I am doing enough for others--and I will sacrifice my own damn good for other people without thinking about it. And it drives my wife insane that I do so. I swear I am trying to help as I run around destroying my own chances for success--and all the while I resent what I think that I am required to do. At some point, I realized that the best I could do to be supportive was to try to act like a normal person--it has not been easy--I have never done so much medical marijuana in my life to keep myself emotionally stable.

Remaining stable has been complicated by the fact that my wife's job hunt was interrupted by her mother's death...which leads to the card that I have chosen for next year.

[Designing the Death card for the Monkey Tarot, I decided to depict the card with a monkey sitting on a pile of skulls wearing a Day of the Dead mask, holding in one hand a bunch of flowers and in the other, a pomegranate. Essentially, we sit on a throne of the bones of our ancestors, making jokes to make sense of the harshness of the universe, watching death be quick and sudden one day, slow and lingering the next, while watching out for those moments that are not the end, but rather a beginning of a new stage of existence.]

Eight of disks--pounding out projects in a systematic approach to build up a body of work.

The card that I think sums up what I hope to happen next year is the Eight of Pentacles. Earlier this year, before all the death and sorrow, I made a plan for my business after much studying of how successful writers were making money as writers.

What I have observed is that successful writers stick to projects until they finish them. Everything else is just a support mechanism for that goal--finishing projects--including selling books to afford to be able to write other books.

I have not been good at finishing projects. The voices in my head, which sound remarkably like my mother's voice, tell me that I need to be successful right out of the gate, and that I am not allowed any resources to accomplish this goal. I have spent a lot of time trying to find that perfect project that will generate a lot of money while costing nothing in resources. So in space of a week, I will have started and abandoned seven projects. This was especially true before I started taking bipolar meds.

Just in case, you do not realize how bad the voices in my head are, consider the following idea: "You are supposed to be making a hundred thousand a year without spending a single dime, or wasting large amounts of time creating product."

Unfortunately, being a writer involves dumping a lot of time and resources into projects that one does not know if they are going to succeed or not. For instance, every successful writer making a living as a writing, if they write series of novels, has at least three books in their series (that's three whole novels!). And they did the three books set routine again and again until they discovered their successful series.

Now, I used to be able to make some money doing short stand-alone stories, but the dubious erotica market has dried up over the last few years as people have screamed, "Children can find erotica when they search for books" and blamed the writers for ebook retailers not having a proper adult filter for their searches. My estimate of how much potential income this has cost me runs thousands of dollars a year. At one point, there were erotica writers making hundreds of thousands per quarter (yes, I said "quarter"). But no, that would make things far too simple. With Barnes and Noble bringing their policies in line with everyone else's, those days were over (please note, I made my plan six months before B&N closed their system to dubious erotica).

Anyways, earlier this year, I broke down and told my wife, in painful detail, what I actually needed to do, if I wanted to start making money as a writer again. One, I had to switch fields; two, literally had to write at least three novels with only a best guess what would get readers to shell out money; three, I had to give up the idea that I could pull this miracle off without burning up resources or sufficient amounts of time; four, never think about returning to minimum wage restaurant work ever again.

And five, I had to continue taking bipolar meds; and for those really bad blind panic days, accept the fact that it was best for everyone concerned that I eat a "magical cookie."

Now, my wife has been amazed at the change in my thought process, thanks to the meds. I am also surprised--it is like I am a different person than I was for the first fifty years of my life.

So when everything went sideways, with death, and more death, and let's call the B&N policy even more death, I have somehow managed to stay on the side of functional. I have also managed to stick to the plan to reinvent myself as a writer. It has been slow going...because I have been placing comforting my wife above hacking out words...but hey, I have managed to keep my eyes on the prize of actually finishing a series (or at least, the first three installments).

The idea for 2018 is to keep on writing and focusing on a single large project (three novels same world!)--to stick to my business plan.

[Designing the Eight of Pentacles for the Monkey Tarot, I decided to use the image of Shakespeare Monkey, combined with a symbol of a factory approach to production. Shakespeare Monkey refers to the idea that if you have an infinite number of monkeys and an infinite amount of time, monkeys randomly typing can produce the exact text of Shakespeare. It is an idea that I encountered as a teenager which periodically crops up in my work. Red typewriter is a symbol of self-promotion--something I need to get better at. Dice are obviously a symbol of randomness--and sometimes success looks exactly like randomness--why do some people succeed and other people fail? And behind the monkey is a logo for the most famous company in the universe--ACME--because building a successful series involves work. Trivia--with the five and three visible on this side of the dice, the opposite side has to be a four and a two...42...yes, I am that nerd.]

The idea of a blog hop is to link to each other's blogs in a giant circle.

Thanks for reading this installment of the Tarot Blog Hop. Feel free to hop backwards to Joanne Sprott's Cosmic Whispers Tarot blog, or forward to Jay Cassel's Metaphysical Musings blog. And if there are any link problems, check out the Master List of all the entries in this edition.

Previous/ MasterList/ Next

How is the writing going (NaNoWriMo update)

As my regular readers know, November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)--that delightful time when ambitious crazy writers attempt to hack out fifty thousand words in the space of thirty days. My regular readers also know that this is my eleventh year of doing NaNo. My regular readers may even know some of the signs that the writing is not flowing as quickly as it could.

For instance...

This is the cleanest that the stove has been in an year.

...my cleaning the stove is a sign that the writing is not going as well as it should be going. It is also the sign that I am struggling with a plot problem.

It is normal for me to do some extra cleaning in November--cleaning that I did of my own free will.

I am basically that breed of human being that is a-okay with a dirty kitchen, moldy leftovers in the fridge, dishes stacked to the ceiling, mountains of laundry, cobwebs hanging from the ceiling, a layer of dust on everything, unvacuumed floors, and piles of books everywhere.

Please note that I am not a complete slob; I do clean the litter boxes daily...basically my level of dirt tolerance is on the same level as a cat.

So it is a red letter day whenever I do some cleaning. And often it happens when I am working hard on a project and having one of those days when the words are coming at the glacier speed of one per hour.

I first noticed the habit when I was managing restaurants. I would take "vacation days" where I was in the store, but the employees were going to deal with everything except emergencies (such as fires) because I had no desire to deal with customers. And the employees better be okay with it because otherwise the cleaning that I was doing would become their job. Cleaning such as scrubbing out the oven, cleaning the air vents, degreasing the walls and fan chutes--you know, the fun stuff that would never get cleaned under normal conditions.

When I quit restaurant work, so I would not kill anyone, the habit of "vacation days" taking the form of cleaning stuff that had been dirty forever followed. As a result, my friends can tell when I am seriously working on a project, but having a day when the words are just not coming (typically because of a plot problem).

So here is to my much cleaner house.

(On a bright note, I think I figured out this particular plot problem. Too bad, there are sure to be at least three more. Well, at least, it will make my wife happy that I did some cleaning.)

What is NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month)

For those who are curious, National Novel Writing Month is basically a bunch of writers (both professional and amateurs) who attempt to write fifty thousand words without any editing in the space of thirty days in order to create a rough draft of a novel.

The preceding sentence was forty-five words. That's like 2.9 percent of the 1667 words one needs to write on average every day to hit that goal. Or in other words, I would need thirty-eight more sentences of that length to complete today's word count goal. Provided that these were actually words that belonged to the horrific novel that I was working on.

But I would never do that; I would never count the number of words that I used to explain NaNoWriMo to pad out my rough draft and hit my goal. That would be cheating.

No, instead I would write "The Great Gherkin has a small pickle" two hundred and fifty-four times to make up my daily word count. Do that thirty days in a row, and behold a novel that is as intelligent as anything a Big Name Occultist/Magician/Witch/Shaman/KarmaCoach has ever said.

In fact, if you read the sentence "The Great Gherkin has a small pickle" out loud seven thousand one hundred and forty-three times, you will become enlightened. You can trust me on that one, for I am a novelist and not the Great Gherkin.

Or so you would think.

Burn all liberal science fiction writers (Conservatives only want conservative science fiction)

Yes, I write satire, and this post title is satire...

...but not nearly as much as you would think.

One of the things to come out of the modern polarized world of politics and righteous voters is the idea that only members of your chosen political belief system should be allowed to write and influence society.

That includes journalists, politicians, entertainers, writers, musicians, etc. ad nauseum.

Everyone else (outside of your selected political viewpoint) who influences society should be rounded up, tried and convicted as traitors, and then hang by the neck until dead to protect society from their evil heretic ideas.

Or at least, that is the impression I get from some righteous conservative voters.

For instance, some people think that the new Star Trek series is too political....because what was going on in the real life political world influenced their story lines.

Basically, if you don't agree with their politics, you are not allowed to write anything about politics--fiction or otherwise--scream conservatives. Or anything else for that matter because you might influence people away from good wholesome conservative values (which includes harvesting the organs of dead poor people to buy for tax breaks for the rich who are the true heroes of society).

No, Star Trek is not a liberal Chinese Communist conspiracy to drive the bestest President ever--Donald "Jesus" Trump--from office.

The Star Trek writers employed the device of science fiction, asked "Wouldn't it be wild if a society was like this?"--then wrote some science fiction.

It is not their fault if their story lines ended up looking like something that mirrors the descent of our own society. No, that would be the fault of our society...which by the way also includes you.

Science fiction writers write stuff that they think will be interesting, and will result in them getting more paychecks. It is all about the ratings.

If you want conservative science fiction, you need to encourage conservative science fiction writers (buy their stuff!!! share links to their stuff!!! encourage others to buy their stuff!!!)--it is that simple. If there is boatloads of money to be made writing conservative science fiction, conservatives will write science fiction. You don't need to organize boycotts, or petition Congress to outlaw liberal science fiction, you just need to f***ing support conservative science fiction writers. The free market system, which you as good conservative should believe in totally (especially if you are a Trump supporter), will take care of the rest.

You end up with liberal science fiction because it gets better ratings (and makes more money)  than conservative science fiction.

And for the record, Star Trek has always been political. A lot of science fiction is.

Examples of political science fiction include: The original tale of Atlantis, The Time Machine (H.G. Wells), Starship Troopers (Robert Heinlein), 1984 ( George Orwell), The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams), Disc World (Terry Pratchett), The New Testament (fan-fiction written by the fans of the greatest science fiction writer ever, that dude called Jesus)...etc. 

By conservative standards all these writers should be burned at the stake because they did not openly support a society ran by a reality TV star who cares more about his ratings than actually doing the job that Presidents are supposed to do (hint, the word sounds like "Unity), and where poor dead person organ harvesting helps the government give big tax breaks to those who really need them--aka those who are making over a hundred million a year. Of course, you will have to employ a time machine to kill them; but hey I keep getting told that conservative science is the bomb, and far more advanced than liberal science (which believes in false ideas like human caused global warming), so you should have no problem.

(If you know some interesting conservative science fiction writers, outside of the Great Gherkin himself, feel free to mention them in the comment section. I would mention some...but I can't think of a single one outside of the Great Gherkin [who himself is a work of fiction] and the current Republican administration.)

But never mind that---burn all Star Trek writers as liberal Chinese Communist traitors!!!

My current writing schedule (why only Great Gherkin at the moment) and delay in projects

I been asked about my current writing schedule by more than one person, so I will publicly post my answer.

At the moment, I have no regular writing schedule. Occasionally, I can steal a few minutes to type something up, or to quiet the voice of the Muse; but outside of that, no writing is getting done at the moment.

This means that scheduled projects are being delayed, and certain pre-releases outright cancelled (I de-listed the Mostly True Astrology project yesterday simply because I don't know when I will get back to working on it). And it also means that no matter how tight my budget gets, I can't actually commit to additional projects (I thank people for the job offers, but I can't promise that I will be able to finish even a mere hundred words a week at this point.)

For instance, the overdue (really late) issue of the Denver Witch Quarterly has been re-scheduled yet again, simply because the two outstanding articles that I am supposed to write for it have not been completed. (And the issue can't go out without those articles because they are the signature articles for the issue [Remembering Alia Denny and Esoteric Leadership].) That was what I was working on when my mother-in-law died, taking her own life, and a month and a half later I still have not got around to completing them. (There is actually a chance that the October issue will be released before the July issue, if it hits the word-count target before the July issue is done.)

I simply have to put my wife's emotional needs, mine, and cleaning and prepping my mother-in-law's house for sale, in the top priority slots, followed by housework. (The only reason I have time to write this blog post is that I can't step out of the house before the load in the washing machine is finished.)

So this means that all anyone is going to see from me for awhile is the monthly column for the Hearthstone Community Church's newsletter, and the occasional Great Gherkin related chapter (a lot of the chapters are self-contained, and can stand alone by themselves)--both of which are me getting stuff out of my head, so that I can sleep in peace. And maybe a October blog-vacation project (basically a series of really small nonsensical posts) just to keep the writing flow going until I can get back to my regular writing schedule.

I write to let the voices in my head (aka the Angry Muse) out.

Yin Yang Peppermint Patty (Tarot Blog Hop)

Previous/ MasterList/ Next

Welcome to the June Tarot Blog Hop. For the theme of this hop, Aisling, our fearless wrangler, pointed out that just as the Oak King, Cernunnos (the Green Man), god of planting and the Waxing half of the year, is part of his opposite, Lugh, the Holly King (the Red God), god of harvest and the Waning part of the year, both being halves of a whole, so too are each of us comprised of two halves, a light and a dark.

Aisling wrote, "It is important in the understanding of this Lore to realize that the two Deities here represented are actually seen as one God, two Faces of the same Being, two aspects of life, and actually perform the combat between Oak and Holly as a necessary adaptation of their own Being, with the full understanding of the necessity of both a waxing and a waning year, planting and harvesting, and the joy of creation connected with the necessity of using that creation."

Likewise, she noted that it is important for us to understand the duality of our own natures.

Yang Yin Tarot Spread TBH June 2017.

Towards developing an understanding of this duality, she instructed us to pick a card to represent ourselves, our fundamental nature--our being. Then we were to choose a card that represented its "cognate opposite"--"the yin to our chosen yang." After that, we were to draw five cards at random, to represent the elemental energies in our lives, and to examine how the light and dark of our natures interacted with these forces.

Deck used: The Secret Tarots--Marco Nizzoli (Lo Scarabeo 1998).

Picking the Yang card was actually hard for me, mainly because I was faced with so many tasty options. Literally, I quoted Jeff from the cult TV show, Chuck--"How can I make up my mind when I have so many tasty options? I got so many tasty options..." which probably says that I need a more nerdy Tarot deck than the one that I am using.

I have always found it easier to see the darkness in myself than the light. Think of me as a Yin Yang Peppermint Patty--the dark is all visible with the light part all hidden away. For those who are curious, "Yin Yang Peppermint Patty" is a saying that I learned from my Gardnerian Wiccan aunt--it was the first thing that went though my mind when I read the theme of this Tarot Blog Hop.

The ease that I have in seeing the darkness in myself explains so many of my magical mottos--most of which can be summed up as "If I am a villain condemned to hell, I just as well have some fun on my way there."

Part of my problem with picking a Yang card is spiritual pride. For instance, I would love to be able to choose the Magician card as my Significator--after all, I am an occultist involved in using magic for spiritual development. But realistically, I am probably more of the Devil than the Magician, for as a ceremonial magician, I tend to beat on the universe with a large stick until it does what I want it to. This is a perfect illustration of a magician having a large ego--my only saving grace is that I know that I lean towards black magic, and can't be bothered to claim otherwise.

Sadly, I am just like Jeffrey Barnes from the cult TV show, Chuck.

In the end, I went with the card from my favorite Tarot deck that everyone associates with me: Four of Pentacles. In this particular Tarot deck, The Secret Tarots (Marco Nizzoli), the Four of Pentacles is represented by a man sitting next to a desk with an orb lamp, ink bottles, paper and a book--in other words, I think he might be a writer. (Or I could be wrong, and he could be the miser of the Waite/Smith/Rider deck--in which case, I grew up in a poor family and being cheap is a virtue--or so, my mother believed.) Ironically, in my mind, writers are magicians--this is just a more realistic version of a magician. And as my regular readers know, I fancy myself as a writer.

When I read the theme for this hop, I instantly knew what my Yin card was--the Eight of Swords. And I do mean that I knew instantly--there was no need to think about it any further. Like my Yin card, this is a more realistic version of a Major Arcana for me--yes, I can see the Devil in this card. In my case, my darkness is a mental state created out of being bipolar, being raised in a bipolar family, and being expected to sacrifice myself in the best interests of everyone else, and to only do things that made the rest of family (well, my mother) look good.

Or as I like to joke, the voices in my head can get really loud. "Will this project make money? Shouldn't you go back to flipping burgers--you would make more. Ain't you full of sinful pride? You are a lousy writer. It is your sister who is the real writer. What would Mom [and the rest of the family] think if this project became successful? Oh, the shame you are going to cause--the family is going to disown you." Basically, I am a prisoner in my own mental hell constructed by an unstable selfish bipolar mother.

How unstable and selfish was my mother? Oh, just the normal "Babysitting your siblings is more important than your homework" and "Oh, I am having a bad day, so let me throw you down the stairs" and "Oh, he doesn't visit me because he ended up in prison" and "Oh, you are a Wiccan...well, I am going to try to get you committed to a mental ward for being a Satanist." Never mind that I never served a day of jail time, and that I successfully managed a restaurant for ten years, and completely ignore any kind act you have seen me do. Is it any wonder that I can see my darkness much better than my light?

Moving along to the rest of the cards...

The Spirit (Wisdom) card I pulled was the Seven of Pentacles, a man looking at a growing tree. In my head, I have all these perfect plot ideas...which I tend to give up on before I am even remotely done with a project. Pat Zalewski (or was it his wife, Chris) said of this card that it sometimes indicates "There is a strong need to be financially secure to offset a deep emotional need for security" and that is really part of my Stop and Go problem as a writer. I can quickly get off the rails, and start project hopping (finishing nothing) when monetary shortfalls crop up--all in the hope of finding that golden money making project.

The Fire (Will) card I pulled was the Ten of Pentacles, a couple sitting outside of a house in one of those historical "take my picture and see how much wealth I have" poses. Having studied the habits of successful writers, I know that it is possible to make a comfortable living writing provided that one works hard and finishes projects. But there is that little voice saying that I should be doing something else and to quit wasting my time as a writer. One of the esoteric teachings about this card is that in order to accomplish the pinnacle of success, one needs to have the upper and lower worlds working in harmony. Interestingly enough, one of my current project ideas involves a lot of expensive research, and I mean a lot of research--yet I think that it would be a mighty fun project to write which would end up with loyal fans. Now if I could only get the voices in my head to shut up long enough to actually finish the research and the writing...

The Water (Intuition) card I pulled was the Lightning Struck Tower. On one hand, I hope to be a successful writer; on the other hand, I fear becoming a successful writer. Basically, I have some fear of being successful. While my mom died two years ago, I still think that some of my family will blow a gasket if I actually do become successful. And let's be honest, all writers end up with a horde of haters. On top of that, I would have no idea what to do with actual money, if I somehow ended up being one of those writers. Fortunately, as the voices say, I am a little delusional and can ignore the possibility of becoming successful.

The Air (Mind) card I pulled was the King of Pentacles. This is an one day at a time card--just keeping moving forward. The writer in me knows that writing projects take time to complete--there is research, rough drafts, beta readers, editing, etc. to do. And the crazy voices say, "Just one more day--then tomorrow you will give up and go do something else with your life, and everyone will be happy that you finally woke up to your senses."

The Earth (Action) card I pulled was the Four of Wands. This card reminds me of my wife. And to be honest, it is her income that is allowing me to stay at the table and continue to write. She is also the person who described to my doctor in horrific details the way that I was acting as an untreated bipolar--without her description, I would not be on the meds that I am currently taking. In addition, there is a "take joy in life" aspect to this card--"nothing ventured, nothing gained" says the writer; "have fun while you can" says the voices of doom and despair.

And so we reach the end of a reading that I am quite sure makes me sound like a loser, who is just one prize away from a Cracker Jack box. I would like to think that my display of public insanity makes you feel much, much better about yourself--or at least grateful that you are not me. And if not, just smile and say, "Yin Yang Peppermint Patty" to the next ten people you meet because that always cheers me up.

Previous/ MasterList/ Next

My top ten blog posts for May 2017

It is the end of the month and it is time for me to look at the top ten blog posts for the month...because I am a blogger, and wonder exactly what blog posts my readers are reading.


But first, an honorable mention--my Tarot Blog Hop post for May, which based on pure numbers actually should be in the top ten--but Blogger seems to weigh older posts heavier (for reasons that are beyond my understanding). The Tarot Blog Hop was about combining divinatory systems, but I spent more time talking about my fiery Mercury. [Mix and match divination]


Coming is at number ten is a post about a child shooting his own mother...which gun freedom nuts are perfectly ok with--because Guns are Great!!! [Child terrorists shoots his own mother]


Number nine is occupied by my post about how the global bind Donald Trump ritual was affecting the views of my July Fourth 2016 video talking about binding Donald Trump. That's right, I was binding Donald Trump before it became the cool "satanic" and witchy thing to do. [Why the spike in video views?]


Number eight was the ritual script for the global witchcraft binding ritual of President Donald Trump and all his little pals. It is so sad that Trump didn't get better ratings. Help him get better views by screaming at people that witchcraft is evil. [Global binding ritual of Trump]


Number seven was an advertisement for my wife's mortar and pestles. Yes, it was an advert, but it still counts as being a popular blog post. [New mortar and pestles available on Etsy]


Number six was my Earth Day post reminding people not to toss old hoses into the recycling bin, and not to use the brains of dubious occult leaders when they design new esoteric systems. [Do not recycle the Abby Normal brain]


And roaring into number five is Trump! That's right--not happy with just two slots on this hit parade, President Trump grabs a third as I talk about what Trump accomplished in his first hundred days in office, and what my mom thought he was going to accomplish--oh, the bitter disappointment. [Congrats! You survived the first hundred days of Trump]


And not happy with just three slots, Trump strikes again, taking spot number four by doing something totally legit and awesome--firing the director of the FBI. Yes, nothing to see there--move along. [Trump restores confidence in the FBI]


But just when you thought that occult news could not trend and get readers, an old post (two and a half years old) about the arrest of the Living God, E.A. Koetting grabs number three. Honestly, this post performs month after month, just proving that some people do actually use Google to check out occult authorities and personalities. Let's give a big round of applause to the Living God for continuing to generate traffic. [Thoughts on the arrest of E.A. Koetting]


And just when you thought that we were done with Trump, he inspires a post about how his treatment of secrecy and his midnight rage tweets reminds me of all the good times we have had with dubious occult teachers and leaders using the concept of secrecy to cover their asses and the their revealing of others' dirty laundry to destroy their enemies. Go Trump! Or is this more about dubious occult leaders? Go Great Gherkin and Jimmie Bob Beggains! Either way, it is our number two for the month of May. [Secrets declassified--the Golden Dawn edition]


So who is going to grab post number one of the month? Is it going to be some random post talking about nonsense? Maybe an occult lore piece? Can the dubious occult leaders win the day? Or will it be the last President of the United States?


And the answer found in an old mayo jar sitting on the help desk of Blogger is...


Dubious occult leaders!!!


Yes, in a surprise win, dubious occult leaders using lineage to prove that they are truly Wiccan Elders and the greatest occult authorities ever beats out President Donald Trump! Who would have guessed it? No one saw that one coming. Stand tall dubious occult leaders, you are still the number one reason that I blog. [Lineage dost not make an Elder]

Does historical fiction need to be accurate? (Especially if I am the writer)

One of the things that I have been kicking around is a story set in Ancient Egypt. Now I will probably never write it because I have now mentioned it on my blog which usually kills off any project that I discuss...because of...I am not sure--it may simply be that my brain says "You have told that story already--move on."


Of course, it may also be my perfectionist nature, or maybe there is a voodoo doll out there of me with lots of pins in it, or the fact that I worry about how other people will react to my work--who knows.


The big question that I am asking about this project is "How much actual historical accuracy do people expect?"


If readers expect a hundred percent accuracy, then let's be honest, they will be sadly disappointed in my work--because I have never allowed the truth to get in the way of a good story. That is a nasty habit that I picked up from my father, who used to tell jokes about the Polish (including the famous short runway pilot joke).


There is also the little fact that my degree is in general history, and not a deep degree focused on any particular time period.


Plus to use the best research and knowledge available on Ancient Egypt costs an arm and a leg. Doing research, I learned that many of the books that would be particularly useful to me, have price tags in the hundred of dollars (and one topped a thousand dollars).


And then there is the other side of the question, which is "Do Golden Dawn members expect fiction written by an Order member to reflect the teachings of the Golden Dawn tradition, even when the current academic research says that the Golden Dawn lore is completely and utterly wrong?"


For the one person who just said, "What? Golden Dawn is not historically accurate? That can't be true--the Imperator of Golden Dawn insists that the teachings of Golden Dawn are one hundred percent true to the Ancient Egyptian mysteries because our Order lineage goes all the way back to Ancient Egypt and beyond."--Sorry, someone has lied to you.


But none of these questions matter because I am probably not going to do any more work on the project--because that is the curse of mentioning it--which I am quite sure will make my favorite critic happy.

One of my favorite scenes from Stargate: "Why do they keep reprinting Budge?"

Aces wild (the life of a writer in Ace form)

Previous/ Master List/ Next 

Welcome to the 41st Tarot Blog Hop. Yes, that is right--this is the first Tarot Blog Hop of year six. The very first Tarot Blog Hop happened way back in Imbolc 2012, oh how times flies. Over the course of the last five years, every six weeks Tarot bloggers have came together and opened up their brain boxes to talk about various Tarot topics.

To start off our sixth year, our fearless leader and cat wrangler, Arwen, asked us to consider "How can I best foster the energy of the Aces in my life?" She also noted that "Aces are the beginning of the suits as seeds are the beginning of the plant."

Oh, I struggled with this one. I put it off, and then put it off some more. A lot of household cleaning got done--because as a writer and house husband, housekeeping happens when I am blocked as a writer and writing happens when I am in no mood to clean.

I still have no brilliant ideas for this one, so let me describe my life as a writer and how the suits (which grow out of the Aces) manifest in my profession during the production of a book. Yes, I know that is god awful boring, but I really have no other idea of what to do.

(The only people who find the life of writers interesting are other writers. Sure, there are some writers who have wild adventures, but the actual writing part of their lives is god awful boring for the most part. Why should my writing life be any different?)

[I really should point out that I am talking about "creative writers/novelists" and "occult/esoteric writers" in this post--not technical writers, not public relations, not script writers, etc.--this is important to keep in mind, especially when I am talking about the monetary aspects of my profession--I don't belong to a well-paid branch of the profession.]

Passion is not everything.

"Oh, you are so lucky to do something that you are passionate about for a living," says the person who believes that writing is easy, that writers attend lots of parties, and go out having interesting adventures; they also believe that all writers are making big sacks of money while only working on projects that are enjoyable. I blame movies, television, the myth making department of publishing houses, and news-media for this person's beliefs. Basically, you only hear about interesting writers who made boatloads of money--the J.K. Rowlings and Stephen Kings--and those celebrities who wrote books (in all likelihood, the celebrity talked to a ghost writer for a few hours, and the ghost writer did all the actual tedious writing). You never hear of the average writer who would probably be better off earning money flipping burgers.

[Official government figures on income and such for writers is extremely misleading, for it does not actually account for all the writers who support themselves doing other types of work. The official government figures are only for success stories, and ignore most of the less-than-stellar writers who are working day jobs (they get counted as their day job). Either that or my web monkey skills are not clever enough to figure out the right combination of keywords. For real numbers, one has to rely on independent studies like Author Earnings.]

Now, it may seem strange that I am associating "profit and income" to the Ace of Wands, along with passion. But considering whether a project might be profitable or not comes at the start of the process and not the end. 

Whether you are a writer or a publisher, the first thing you have to decide is what genres and niches you are going to produce work in. Now, publishers (like banks) are always profit oriented--after all, the entire structure of traditional publishing is that best sellers support the entire structure. Writers, on the other hand, can choose passion over potential profit.

In my case, as a writer, I have split the difference. A certain amount of my work is aimed at profit, and is typically published (or sold) under secret pen-names. Then comes the "it might make money" stuff provided that it finds the right audience. And on the tail end are projects that will never justify the amount of effort it would require to see them though to completion.

In general, if you want to make money as a novelist, you go for romance, mystery and action, sci-fi, and other genres will lots of potential customers.

What you don't do is decide to focus on a niche of a niche of a niche. Not that common sense ever applies to my actions. In my case, I had a publisher once consider some of the books I wanted to write for the occult market--the projects went nowhere because I was told that at best, I could hope for a hundred customers.

And that was not even taking into account that piracy would have on my potential audience and customer base. One of the harsh bits of reality is that the occult market is really small, and a simple act of piracy can completely empty it before you sell a second copy of your book. The insult to injury, in my opinion, is that many occult book pirates believe that occult writers owe society free occult books and that it is the duty of occult writers to write for free (never charging for even a single copy) because access to esoteric knowledge improves society.

[Got an opinion about whether or not occult writers and artists should be paid? Denver Witch Quarterly is looking for submissions on that topic, as well as the usual mix of stuff.]

If I had to survive on passion projects alone, I would be in trouble. No, I survive on pure stubbornness, screaming that the universe will obey my command to make me a famous writer, even if I have to beat it with a stick.

Having the idea is not the hard part.

There are people who believe that having a good idea is the hardest part of being a writer. These are the type of people that walk up to you at a party and say, "I have an idea for a book. Tell you what. You write the book, and we will split the profit 50/50." I might have made a promise to myself that I am going to punch the next person to say such to me.

Honestly, I have no shortage of ideas. My cup flows over in the idea department. The idea factory could shut down right now, and I would still have enough ideas stockpiled to keep me busy for a century. (Yes, there is an idea factory, and you can get a big monthly box full of ideas from them for the low, low cost of being willing to be at the keyboard until your fingers start to bleed.)

Now whether or not, they are good ideas that I am passionate about, or think will make money, is a higher decision, just like my ability to execute them is a lower matter. But overall, I am most comfortable in the waterly world of idea generation. 

99.9999999999% of the writing process is pain.

If one has decided that being a novelist (or an occult writer) is a good idea, you spend a lot of time working with the Air stage of the writing process. There are rough drafts, editing, chopping, cutting, adding, remixing, formatting, beta readers, research, yada yada dippity do.

Here is where you deal with your writer's block (the quickest way to develop writer's block is to allow perfectionism to run amok). And what educated writing looks like. And whether that really entertaining sentence needs to be dragged out and buried. And what is the ideal length for what you are writing.

And at some point (when I was in the world of passion and potential profit), I decided that I would rather spend 24/7/365 in this self-made hell than flipping burgers...because I am happier doing this than anything else I ever tried my hand at.

And this whole bloody process doesn't end until you finally scream, "Good enough for government work." It is only when you hit publish that this tedious process ends. 

[Note that if you are aiming to be published by traditional legacy publishing, you have to survive all three elemental steps again that you have already dealt with. And there is a definite chance that you are going to have to go the entire process of writing and editing your book all over again based on what a publisher believes will sell.]

Getting eyeballs and bookshelf space is like selling burgers. Or farming. Or playing the stock market.

Now, bear in mind that none of this is an exact science. But if I have managed to get though all the previous stages, and finally have a project finished, then and only then can the Earth stage happen. Quite simply to have any hope of making money as a writer, you have to have a product to sell.

So now I have to deal with the uploading, advertising, sales copy, marketing, begging that comes with actually moving copies. And it is as hard as digging ditches for a living--at least in my case (I did not inherit my father's ability to sell stuff), especially if you are asking people to pay you good money for your work.

(If you are willing to write for free, you will never run out of stuff to write. But don't expect "free" to become "paid." If you want to earn money writing, you have to draw a line and say, "I write for money." It doesn't stop you from doing projects that you are passionate about, but it helps you to avoid never having a project that might make some money. At some point, you need a product that you can slap a price tag on.)

If I allow myself, I can remain in the previous three stages forever, especially if I am not on bipolar meds. I literally cycle though the other three stages constantly and never finish a damn thing. During really rough times, I will spend a day on a project, abandon it, and never come back to it, or any other project for that matter. I have thousands of unfinished projects.

I second guess myself a lot. This is partially because of upbringing, and partially because I (erroneously) believe that I should be making significant money right out of the gate. At the moment, I am still struggling with my inner demons. Other people get to have cool spiritual adventures, visions, and unicorns--I get inner voices saying "That will never make money," and "What would your poor mother think," and "Other writers would be far more suitable to work with this idea."

It is no wonder that so much housework got done before I started working on this post. I am still processing a heap-load of internal trash that says that I am unworthy of being a success as a writer. And this bloody blog post just brings it all up to the surface. How can I best foster the energies of the Aces? Hell if I know.

There are some tricks I have learned. Most of which involve deadlines and saying "fuck it--it's done."

My current favorite story of hacking my way though the four stages of writing comes from last year: a writer/publisher friend of mine (who I have never met at a party, despite living in the same state) decided to do an anthology of short horror stories by actual working magicians. First, I debated whether I was really a working magician. Then I had this perfect plan in my mind for the story. Followed by a case of really fine writer's block. With the deadline breathing down my neck, I hacked out a story that did not include several scenes that I originally planned and was shorter than I originally intended it to be. Then after it was completed, I thought about not submitting it because I mentioned politics in the story and because my friend was going to get far better stories than this one. In the end, I submitted it because it was done, and I am stubborn.

(It was actually accepted--the anthology Into the Abyss can be brought on Amazon.

And honestly, it is  probably one of my better short stories. But boy did I struggle with my inner demons while completing it. I am not sure if this is the best way to foster the energies of the Aces, but it is the only way I know how.

Previous/ Master List/ Next