ANNOUNCEMENT: New Fiction

So, wow, in the many years I've been writing this blog, I don't think I've ever actually had an announcement before.

But, this is a pretty big deal.  So here we go!

I've started a brand spanking (heh) new Patreon page for my fiction and audio fiction!

It’s at https://www.patreon.com/makoallen

And yes, I've already got one patron!  (Thanks, Shok!)

Here's the deal on this thing:

I love writing short fiction.  I love recording audio stories.  I love writing novels.

But as you all know, the podcast, which is a big venue for me to do that sort of thing, hasn't been coming out very often lately.  That's due to a large number of life factors, for both Spacey and myself.  I've been super busy working on a side business.  

But I love this stuff.  And I want to give time to it.  So, I've decided to embark on a brave little experiment.  I'm going to be writing new fiction of multiple lengths, and posting it on my patreon page.  That includes, amongst other things, recording audio versions of my existing novels, Auntie Eva's Boarder and Concerning Littleton.

It also includes work on short stories about other characters in the Littleton universe.  And some brand new work I've been doing on gentle femdom characters.  PLUS, I've got a 3rd novel in the works, and if this thing takes off, I'm going to let you all see it and help me write it, by letting people test read it.

I'm so excited, I can't even stand it!

I'll keep you all posted. 

#gratitudeNow:Pause, Repeat

So I was freaking myself out this morning.  

Panic cat is panicking.

I'm learning this shiny, new-to-me technical thing at work.  I largely understand it, but I keep bumping up against little pieces of it that don't make sense to me, and then spinning myself out into a frothy mix of panic, anxiety, and doomsaying.

Then I got pinged by my friend Matti, who was asking me to remind him of the 4 Necessities.  That is, the four things I have told him before that are absolutely mandatory and which you cannot help but to do them.  Talking to him about them reminded me that they apply to me too.

Here they are:

1. You must exist. Because you already do. If you're questioning whether you have to or not, WHO'S DOING THE ASKING?
2. You must age.  Because you are. You're moving forward in time, 1 second per second, relentlessly. Can't stop it.
3. You must change. Because you do. Literally every moment of every day. The you of 3 three minutes ago is different at a molecular level, even if it's only partially.
4. You must, eventually, die.  Because like all living things, you will.

Every other single thing except these 4 things is utterly and completely optional.

Whew.  I'm glad he asked me to remind him.  I needed the reminder myself.  Now that it's on my mind, I'm able to step back from my full-on-freak-out and see that I don't have to doubt myself.  I can just put my head down and move forward as best I can.

Mindfulness is work.  Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to it.

#gratitudeNow:Feed the soul

I’m doing something today I haven’t done in literally years.  I’m at lunch, and working on a writing project. 

I don’t want to get into exactly WHAT that project is.  But I just want to say how very glad I am that I’m doing it.  I had put my fiction work on hold for other reasons, for a while now. 

But I’m trying something new.  This is as a means to not ignore this vital part of my life.  It’s a new way to write, and to perform, and to make money too.  Making money at it is important to me both as a validation of the work itself, and also as a personal validation of the time I’m making to do this.  My time is precious.  I’m glad to see the value of using it again for this.

I’m thrilled about the whole thing.

#gratitudeNow:Heart of Palm

So, I've had some stuff going on.

I could regale you, constant reader, with a catalog of woe.  But it doesn't matter.  Some of the stuff is intensely private, and not about me, either.  So, I'm going to mostly keep that part to myself.

Yesterday, I had a really hard conversation that I've needed to have with someone close to me, for a while.  I've been dealing with some family illness issues too.  And, I'm about to have a veritable tornado of dental misadventures.  Heavy, right?

But this morning, I feel good.  Amazing, in fact.

Why?  Because of part of my mindful practice.  There's this thing I do, that I learned in part from Pema Chodron, in part from Alan Watts, and in part just from my own experience: I bend.

The kind of bending I'm talking about is similar to how palm trees on tropical islands bend, during a storm.

A hurricane comes through, and it will not be stopped.

So, instead of standing tall and proud, proof against the storm, these wily things get pushed down.  Then, when the storm's done, they pop right back up.

I know trees don't have a nervous system, or sentience, but I tend to personify everything, so let's just pretend they do here.  I can kind of see it going like this:

Tree named Ed:  "Hey Phil, looks like there's a hurricane coming.  Man, these things make me so tense."

Tree named Phil: "Now Ed, we'll be all right.  You just gotta relax, man.  Don't have a coconut over it.  It'll blow over."

The storm comes through.  It's pretty terrible.  Ed and Phil are blown on so hard, they are basically bent in half, just about touching the ground.

Ed: "Oh man, this hurts like hell!"

Phil: "Yeah, this sucks.  Hang in there.  It'll be over soon!  If I had teeth, I'd be gritting them right now."

Ed: "Yeah, me too."

Then the storm gets less.  The trees spring back up.

Ed: "Whew, that was a bad one."

Phil: "Sure was.  Man, this sunshine sure is nice."

Ed: "Sure is."

And that's it.  Me, I'm just like Ed and Phil, except I actually do have teeth, and don't have any coconuts hanging off me, or leafy fronds that I know of.  Stuff happens, bad personal storms, and they hurt, and they're scary, and I dislike them.  And then it's sunny again, and it feels good.

Bending.  It's pretty great.

#gratitudeNow:Nothing for it

I'm pretty beat.  I've got some heavy stuff on my mind, which I'm not going to get into here on the blog in detail, because Internet.

But the good news is, I've got tools to deal with my heavy stuff.

I've been engaged in my mindful practice of Taoism  for over 15 years now.  It's not a magic solution that solves all problems, and leaves me floating in midair.  Rather, it's a discipline, a practice.  And it doesn't mean that I live in a state of perpetual bliss, either.  Really, it's just the opposite.  I don't particularly feel any one thing all the time.  Rather I'm committed to stay and feel everything.

Over the years I've been doing it, my understanding of that practice has grown and changed.

But my fidelity to it has not.  

Today I'm focused on a key tool that's part of that practice, wu wei, the action of non-action.  It's not laziness, or indolence.  It's a kind of relaxing surrender.  

Think of how water is.  When you pour it into a glass, it takes the shape of that glass.  It surrenders to gravity and form.  And yet water is among the most powerful things on the planet.  

Storms and floods can erase mankind from places.  And nothing grows without water to help it along.  But water's power comes from its quiet nature.  True, raindrops can hollow out a canyon - but not all at once.  Just over time.

This is where wu wei comes to bear.  I can make myself spun up and anxious and out of sorts over things - and it will not change them.  What will change them is me, being present and moving through time, one second per second, into the future.

I can obsess over how things were, or may yet be.  But that's not real.  Instead, I can make the conscious choice to be present, and do nothing.