From the Ditch to the Dream in One Decade
Isn't this the time of year when people look back over their accomplishments and send self-congratulatory letters to their friends and family?
You're welcome.
(I'm kidding. If you want to skip this, wait until next week, and work on setting intentions for your new year… My feelings won't be hurt.)
I haven't written a personal newsletter-style post in a long time and I have a lot to share. I'm due for a big ten-year life review. I love my work. I also love to ramble on about it (as my closest friends can testify); I'm just generally good at keeping it off this blog.
My work is my life, my life is my work, and I say that with true joy. I have friends, family, and animal companions for all the other important stuff. And pop culture (books, film, music, television). *see Facebook
I've wanted Shift Your Spirits posts to be:
- all about you
- evergreen (relevant at whatever time and within whatever synchronicity you might discover them).
They are meant to deliver channeled messages from our collective guides and to sometimes also manage to speak directly to you.
Social media has successfully absorbed the everyday banter; it has proven to be the best environment for any interest you may have in interacting with me, the person, the man behind the curtain. So, if you'd like to establish a more personal connection with me, please add me on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads.
I've found a happy medium between my public role here as an intuitive and my private life -- the first-person accounts in the Paranormal Memoirs, which are much closer to my fictional story-telling voice. The encouraging response and continued popularity of those tales has definitely allowed me to move forward with a new publishing venture.
My Biggest News of the Year
Fiction I've been a professional non-fiction writer for about eleven years -- now I am officially a fiction author!
This is one of the most significant milestones in my life. You remember when people asked you what you wanted to be when you grew up? Well, you are looking at my answer.
Maybe you noticed that my Shift Your Spirits posts were a bit less frequent this year? :/ Whoops. I am still learning how to time-manage the addition of an entirely new business.
I spent the last thirteen months writing three novels. One of them has made it all the way to the finish line!
Cloudbusting My first full-length piece of published fiction will be available in March 2014, in paperback and ebook formats, through all the major English speaking Amazon markets, Kindle, and Kobo.
The book is called Cloudbusting. It's about weather magic. A dark, emo novella full of sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll... and witchcraft.
*Update: Cloudbusting is now available in Paperback and Kindle formats from Amazon.
Acknowledgements This year, the Universe has delivered an amazing team of professional collaborators: my fiction editor John, my quasi-agent-cheerleader/ early-draft-critic Kerry, a growing team of beta readers like Charles, Jewels, Phillip, and Gail… and last but not least, my book designer, Scarlett.
Would you like to be on my beta reader team for a future book? If you're a book nerd, a passionate reader of literary fiction -- especially if you can appreciate a lighter touch of magical realism, contemporary paranormal, and urban fantasy elements within your literary fiction -- and you'd like to read a future draft of one of my novels, compassionately rip it apart, and tell me how to make it better… I would consider that a tremendous favor.
Cloudbusting is already being published and will be out in March 2014, but if you're interested in being a beta reader for the early draft of a future manuscript, contact me and let me know.
From Writer to Author Ten years ago, I worked with an agent who encouraged me to build the non-fiction pillars of my author platform first, to establish income streams, and build an audience.
It was great advice. I know trying to write fiction full-time, in addition to a 9-5 job, would have been impossible for me. I tried that for a few decades. Creating passive income streams has been the magic key to the freedom in my schedule, and in my finances, that has allowed me to become a professional writer of metaphysical non-fiction and fiction.
If you're also a writer-in-transition-to-author, I have perfected and published a writing production system that incorporates intuitive, automatic writing techniques. My system has worked for hundreds of other writers now as well -- check out Automatic Author.
I hope that in the very near future, with a few fiction titles out there doing well, I can create yet another Automatic Author : Fiction writing program. For now, I'm still learning and working out my system for fiction. As soon as I've actually pulled it off for at least a few novels, I will share.
One of the best contemporary business models you can use:
Do what you love to do and teach other people how you do it.
Automatic Intuition I continue to offer Readings as my schedule allows, but my primary work revolves around teaching other people how to become a professional intuitive.
For the past four years, Automatic Intuition has been the jewel in the crown of my life's work and purpose. In 2014, I'm taking the professional intuitive training to the next level.
Beyond Readings -- Advanced Professional Intuitive Mentoring Just when you've learned to do readings, and we've just started talking about how you can make it your career, the private mentoring sessions draw to a close... and I'm not done with what I want to share with you. I'm just getting started!
Y'all this one is gonna be good. This is exclusive back stage access to building your own version of a business brand and online presence like I have, with tons of creative exercises to effortlessly shake out your authentic voice, and more one-on-one collaborative coaching sessions.
Beyond Readings will be available both to graduates of Automatic Intuition Professional AND to those who have received training and certification elsewhere, too.
I have now been self-employed for ten years. (That's a decade y'all -- a job-holding record for me, three times over.)
For the last five consecutive years, I have beat the previous year's income earnings record (and that is including all jobs that I've ever held in the past).
Don't feel bad if you can't say the same. I spent the first few years of this century in the Ditch. I created The Money Shift to tell you exactly how I crawled out of it.
Discover Your Spirit Guides For most of 2013, I toyed with the idea of stopping personal Readings indefinitely and referring everyone to some of my favorite students. Regardless of whether or not I decide to do that, I want to offer some way for you to do your own spirit guide readings without necessarily taking a professional-level training program.
So, look for a new program called Discover Your Spirit Guides in early 2014 as well.
Even though I don't write those "Here's What's Happening with Me" posts like the blogs and email newsletters of old, really, when I look at the seven and a half years of articles on Shift Your Spirits and Automatic Intuition, and all the tutorials I've created along the way, there is a kind of record, a diary of sorts, a map of my path.
I've hacked a little trail with a blunt machete and invited you to come deeper into the magical wood where I love to play. The path forward would be meaningless if it wasn't your path too.
Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for being the most important part of my work.
Happy Holidays, Peace, Love and Meaningful Ambition
