Destiny Allison's Blog, page 25

A Brave New World

It never really occurred to me, until today, how different my world just became.  I have always been a writer.  I published my first poems at age 9, and won lots of contests throughout school, but then I quit writing for anyone but myself. 

Posting blogs was a natural thing.  I loved sitting down in front of my screen late a night with a glass of whiskey.  It felt like I was writing into the void, clearing my mind of whirling thoughts and confused emotion through the rhythm of my fingers hitting the keyboard.  The truth is, until this point, the art blog didn't really matter.  It was great when people commented.  But if they didn't, I wasn't bothered.  I had said what I needed and I was done. 

Now, it feels like all of that has changed.  Publishing the book makes my writing, and my thinking, public.  Trying to market the book makes me feel like I'm starting all over again.  Nobody knows me, they have no reason to trust me, and I have to prove myself like I did when I decided to go full time into my art.  While it is exciting, it is also daunting. 

This afternoon, I approached the first bookstore outside my area about doing a reading.  I got a very standard response to what must have been a very standard query.  It was quite the awakening.  The difference, for me, between this and when I started out as an artist, is that in the art world people usually know in the first 10 seconds whether or not they like your art.  In the literary world, I have to convince them to open, and then read the book.  Wow.  That's a huge commitment on their part.  It is much bigger than money.  It is time out of their life. 

I am so grateful for the preorders that have come in for Shaping Destiny, and for the response to the book launch invitations.  I think we are going to have a very full house.  Now, I only hope I won't disappoint and that my learning curve is steep.

Bloopers and Great News!

You can see the real book trailer by clicking here.

Now for the great news!! Ted Orland, author of View from the Studio Door, and co-author of the bestselling book, Art & Fear, will be joining me for the launch of Shaping Destiny on March 16 at Collected Works Bookstore.  I am so honored to have him as my guest, and so excited to meet him and talk with him!

If you don't know Ted's work, check him out by clicking here.

Book Launch

It is snowing, the sky gray and white outside my windows.  The wind howls, there is a large fire in the stove, and I am waiting.   The last draft has been submitted and the book is done. 

We will launch Shaping Destiny on March 16th at 6 pm at Collected Works Bookstore in Santa Fe.  The book trailer is almost finished, and for the first time in this whole process, everything is out of my hands.  This is both exciting and daunting.  The thing I like best, and least, about being an indie author and self-publishing, is that I can touch everything, be a part of the process instead of a witness to it.  Now, I have to get ready to let it go, be what it will, and focus on putting it in the hands of the people who might appreciate it.  Marketing, in some ways, has an evil connotation.  I would rather, at this moment, think of it as a birth announcement. 

My mood mimics the storm.  The gentleness of falling snow sharply contrasts the violence of the wind, and then, spent, both stop for a time and there is a heavy calm, a promise of more to come, a new beginning.

Lost in the Woods

The last weeks have been fraught with surprises, long hours, and too many deadlines.  So today, instead of going to my studio or my office, I ditched my responsibilities, went back to bed, and read a good book.

This evening, I am a bit saner and am realizing that most of my recent stress has been self-imposed.  The truth is, I'm really nervous about launching the book.  It is all so new that I feel completely lost.  So I spend whatever free time I have doing everything I can think of to try to control an outcome that can not be controlled. 

Several years ago, I read a great book called Deep Survival.  It is a book about why some people survive difficult or life threatening situations and others don't.  One of the things the author stated really struck me.  He said that children who are lost in the woods are much more likely to survive than adults.  Middle aged men are least likely to survive.  This is because middle aged men are more likely to think they can get themselves out of the situation.  They keep moving, they don't take care of their basic needs, and then they panic. 

People who survive settle in for the long haul by doing what they can to find shelter, food and water, while they continue to find ways to appreciate their environment.  Instead of focusing on trying to get somewhere else, they inhabit where they are. 

When I'm writing or making art, I am more like the child who is lost in the woods.  I'm full of wonder and fully present in the moment.  I may not know where I am, but I love looking around and discovering what is there.   The process of self-publishing has been an entirely different experience and I am much more like the middle aged man — running wildly in an attempt to get somewhere until finally panic sets in, reason is abandoned, and hope is lost. 

This evening, after allowing myself a much needed break, I am realizing that all of my endeavors to control the outcome have been somewhat pointless.  No matter how much I research, I will never know as much as I would like to know about indie publishing and most of what I learn will not be relevant to my particular book. 

I have been like a tourist hiker loading myself up with gear I probably won't need for my trip into unknown territory.  I bought the compass and the trail map (though I am not particularly proficient at using them) and some really cool nylon pants, but forgot comfortable shoes, basic first aid, water, matches and waterproof gear.  The novelty of the adventure somehow stripped me of my common sense.  No wonder I got lost.   I think it might be time to stop running, quell the panic, and settle in for the long haul.   Then, if I'm lucky, maybe the book and I will both survive.

The tagline!

Today, between cleaning house, playing backgammon, and drinking a very nice sherry (don't you love Sundays?) I worked on the book description and the tagline.

From what I understand, the tagline is one of the most important components of a book (especially for an indie author).  It is what tempts people to learn more.  It is enticing, exciting, and comprehensive.  It also can't be more than 10 – 15 words in length.  Ok, no pressure here!! After all, I'm drinking sherry.  I can handle this.

Steve and I laughed a great deal while we each shouted out ideas but no matter how many we came up with, nothing seemed to do the trick.  I love the tagline for Art and Fear.  It reads, "An artists' survival guide written by and for working artists).  Its perfect.  It could be the title of the book all by itself.  In this tagline, you get what the book is and, more importantly, why you need to buy it. 

So, a tagline for Shaping Destiny….

Here are some of the things we threw against the wall:

"The beginning is always and end."

"Art equals life"

"Life equals art"  (I think the sherry was starting to win.)

"No matter where you go, there you are."

As you can see, it wasn't going very well.  We finally agreed that "Knowing what you want is only half the journey," was good enough for today.  But really, its not good enough at all — not if you are paying attention to keywords, metatags, or just plain human interest in hopes of effectively marketing your self-published book.  Tomorrow, I'll go back to the drawing board and rely on coffee.  Maybe it will help.

Women Artists

I'm tired tonight.  I woke up at 4:30 this morning after dreaming about an owl who wouldn't let me get close and worried my way into morning because I was afraid I was missing some vital wisdom.

Today, I went through the interior proof and approved it — though I have misgivings.  Some days more than others, I wonder if I know what I am doing or have what it takes.  Shaping Destiny is only a few short weeks away from being real.  On days like this, I wish I had someone to hold my hand, to tell me that its all going to be ok, and ultimately take responsibility for the finished book so that I don't have to do it.

Ahhh, wishful thinking.  And its funny — strange, weird, inevitable, what have you.  For me, it  seems like when I am really serious about anything, and do the work I need to do, then things line up in order to make that thing happen.  And when I don't do the work (or abdicate my responsibility) then pretty much nothing happens.  Still, it would be nice to not wake up in the wee hours worried about what I might have missed or what I could have done better.

This week,  I met with a group of women artists.  They had asked me to give a talk about who I am and what I do.  They are all professional artists, and they all struggle (like I do) with balancing who they are as women and being full time artists.  We talked a great deal about the inherent problems:  family interruptions (as though the work we do in our studio is somehow less important than the missing shirt or what is for dinner), meeting for a drink after work when you are in your studio clothes and covered with soot or paint, our need to nurture that conflicts with our need to be alone with our work, and all the daily conflicts that make it so hard to be both a mother, lover, wife, sister, daughter, friend, and arts professional. 

We talked some about how artists are made to submit and give up their power before they ever get a chance and what we can do about it.  We did not talk about the fact that while this is true for all artists, it is especially hard on women who are trained from the earliest ages to do that in all walks of life.  We are the care takers, the problem solvers, the ones who acquiese to make life easier on others.  Part of this is societal. Part of this is inherent to who we are.  Regardless of the origin however, our tendencies as women are often completely at odds with who we are (and need to be) as artists.  How does a woman artist justify the ego necessary to turn ourselves inside out and expose our souls to the world?  Unlike women in traditional business, women artists are doubly exposed and god help us if we're trying to do something real, something that touches a universal and reveals a truth. 

One of the things that surprised me during this talk was our conversation about women arts organizations.  The frustration we shared was  astounding and  powerful.  None of us belong to a women arts organization because we never wanted to be women artists — we just wanted to be artists.  And, because alot of what we see women arts organziation doing involves fashion shows and that sort of thing.  

I am not undermining excellent craftsmanship and our appreciation for beautiful things, but I question why women arts organizations seem to spend so much energy there.  

This is probably not a good subject for an indie author to broach just prior to the publication of her book, but I think it is an important question and I was so gratified and empowered to have this conversation with a group of women arts professionals that I just had to share it.  I would love to hear your thoughts.