Ch-Ch-Changes: Saying Goodbye to La Belle. . . .

For what it’s worth: it’s never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be.
There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want.
You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing.
We can make the best or the worst of it.
I hope you make the best of it….I hope you have the courage to start all over again.

~ Eric Roth, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Screenplay

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hange.  More often than not, I have viewed change as a dirty word.

Chaotic.

Disruptive.

Unsettling.

Uncertain.

Tradition, on the other hand, was always viewed as sacred.

Stable.
Secure.

Safe.

Routine.

You find more of this lopsided outlook in families where there is emotional or mental instability, I would wager.  I certainly grew up waiting for the other shoe to drop.  It’s only natural then that for many years, I viewed change as something to be avoided at all costs.

After I turned forty, I began to see change as cleansing.  Always slightly chaotic at first, but with the potential to grow into something quite necessary and beautiful.

Not all traditions are worth keeping. 

Not all changes are worth accepting.

But both are worth exploring.

When I began this blog in October 2005, I had no idea what I was doing.  I had the desire and the need to write and share my thoughts, but no clear direction.  I wrote whatever I felt like writing about, hit publish, and went on to the next topic.  And while the pieces of all my true passions are still here, the overall picture they form isn’t as coherent as I’d like it to be.

© lilkar_123rf.com

Still, I struggled with guilt and doubt.  

Was I failure because I no longer wanted to keep writing on this platform?  Is this just my ADD talking and will I regret starting something new somewhere else?

I suppose I could simply do another re-vamp of the site like I did a few years ago.  But the canvas doesn’t feel like the right size anymore.  I feel like using different paints and techniques this time around.  And I really want to start from scratch and build something new.

So I won’t be updating this blog anymore (big shocker, I know).  I don’t know when the new one will be up and public, but I will post one last time here to let you know.

It has been an incredible learning and growing experience here at La Belle these past eleven years and I'm so grateful for each of reader and friend that has accompanied me on this journey.  I hope you will be with me as I begin the next phase of my writing adventure.

See y’all on the other side!

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

Posts on La Belle are written with the following fonts: Georgia, Times New Roman, Vivaldi, Edwardian, and occasionally Baroque Script.

Reading Can Be Detrimental

If I waited until I felt like writing, I’d never write at all.

~  Anne Tyler

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ometimes reading can be detrimental to your health.  Your creative health, that is.

Take this blog for instance.  There are just two posts for 2016 and although I have been writing off and on for the past six months, I have not been sharing any of my thoughts or musings except with a small circle of writers.

And I think one of the reasons is because I read too much.

The majority of writers ~ most certainly all the writers I know personally or have interviewed ~ write because they cannot help themselves.  To put pen to paper or fingertips to the keyboard is to breathe fresh air.  If we do not write, something precious inside withers away.  Of course, as with any passionate pursuit, there are days when writing is more of a chore, when no word seems right, when the ideas and thoughts flow like a mud-swollen creek.  Yet even then, if I do not write something, I go to bed feeling incomplete.

Yet even on those days when the words simply won’t dance in unison for me, even when writing is something I have to force myself to do in the moment, the joy I experience when I write is still there.  Because once the words are being written, joy kicks in. 

Image: © Luisa Vallon Fumi

Not so much with publishing my writing.  And that is because I have read and taken to heart too many articles about writing and publishing and blogging.  The authors of these articles are writerly vampires, sucking the joy completely out of the creative act of writing.  Their intentions are good, but for them, it is all about clicks and likes and views and “quit your job and make $$ writing!”  

Writing then becomes the platform or stage where I perform rather than the writing itself taking the spotlight. 

So I became obsessed with publishing only those pieces that were “relevant” and would “get the most likes.”  But because I’m an intuitive feeler, that translated into “nothing I write is relevant or good enough and no one is listening anyway.”  Well, Mikaela, maybe people have stopped listening because you never hit the publish button anymore.

I think that the more we try to be ‘relevant” the more our art suffers.  And this applies whether we express ourselves via the written word, on canvas, in clay, on the dance floor, or in the recording studio.  Honestly, have you ever seen or heard a work of art and thought, “Wow, that piece of art is so relevant right now!”  Of course not!  We experience art and take it in and say things like, “That painting speaks to my heart in some way,” or “His music moved me to tears,” or “I was mesmerized by her book and couldn’t put it down!”

Something I say will move you or touch you or enrage you or calm you or make you cry.  But that is immaterial to the creative act itself.  I hope my words elicit those reactions, but I would still write even if I were the last rational being on the planet.

Because I write for the sheer joy that the dance and play of words brings me.

And that joy packs its little bags and goes on vacation if I’m too caught up in clicks and likes and number of views.  For a while that meant that I wrote sporadically and only my writing group saw my work.  For the past month, I’ve been writing daily and still my writing group has only seen the results.  But that re-discovered daily writing habit opened my eyes to what I’d been missing ~ the joy.  And suddenly, I don’t care if I hit publish and still no one reads my words.  I don’t care if what I write and publish here will only get five or six likes ~ all from my writing group. 

The most important thing I can do here is simply share the joy of my art.  And hope that by sharing it, I inspire that joy in someone else.  But if not, the Muse will not leave me because no one reads what I have written.  The Muse only grows sad and leaves when I cease to create and share the joy.

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

Posts on La Belle are written with the following fonts: Georgia, Times New Roman, Vivaldi, Edwardian, and occasionally Baroque Script.

#TBT: Finding Peace - One Year Later

Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real.

~ Cormac McCarthy

Posts on La Belle are written with Georgia, Times New Roman, Vivaldi, and Edwardian.  For best viewing, download these fonts.

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t's Throwback Thursday ~ a day when people usually post pictures of themselves in diapers.  And those are just the college photos!

ENFPs aren’t known for following the rules ~ we like structure, we just like to bend it.  So I usually post videos or links to classic songs (rock and otherwise).  

And today, Kimberly over at Being A Wordsmith reminded me that #TBT can be used to share old posts.

Find Peace Amoung the Pieces was written in August 2013.  It was real.  It was raw.  And it was heartbreaking to re-read.  I remember well the feelings I talked about.  The need to escape.  Standing at the edge of despair.  And then ~ I noticed the date.

August 30. 

One year later to the day, I sat in the bow of a fishing boat, headed toward the adventure of a lifetime.  An adventure I couldn't have dreamed of when I wrote that post a year ago.  An adventure that changed my heart.

Image: © bogdanwanko (123rf.com)

Change isn't always a bright, showy spectacle.  It seeps gently, quietly into the blood.  Or burrows deep in the soil of thought and reflection.  Sometimes, you don't see the flowers or the fruit until much, much later.

And in August 2013, I couldn’t know it, but I planted the seeds.  For months, nothing happened.  Or rather, it seemed like nothing happened.  But those seeds were trying hard to germinate.  It’s just that they needed the salt spray of Kodiak, Alaska to finally take root.  And five months later, they're still growing.

I can't wait to see what blooms next.

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

What seeds are you cultivating for a later harvest?

Writing Isn't Work Because It Isn't Difficult

Writing is a relationship that you choose to have. Commit to being loyal, devoted, and faithful to it. Give it your attention.
~ The Write Life

Posts on La Belle are written with Georgia, Times New Roman, Vivaldi, and Edwardian.  For best viewing, download these fonts.

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h! You’re a writer?  That’s not hard work ~ I could do that!  It’s not like you’re working in a mine on a 12 hour shift.”

I often hear some variation of this statement.  So often, that a little piece of the typewriter inside me breaks each time.  So often, I wonder why I write at all.  So often, that I begin to believe the lie.

And for a writer, that spells doom.

Yes, there are moments ~ sometimes whole days of them ~ when writing feels effortless.  As if I can just speak a Potteresque “I solemnly swear I am a writer” and the words magically appear on the page. When ideas flow over me like rapids in a river.  And affirmations and comments pop up like dandelions on my blog.

But if I believe that writing (or any of the arts, really) is always effortless, the moment it ceases to be and becomes arduous and monotonous and boring, I quit.  I feel sad, discouraged.  Or restless and uneasy.  Like an addict, I rush to fill that gnawing ache in my gut with minutes on Twitter, hours on Facebook, and days on Pinterest.

Yet no matter how many times I tweet, update my status, or pin images of wise sayings ~ that gaping hole inside never gets filled.

This cycle of starts and stops, excitement and discouragement has been my life for as long as I can remember.  I felt powerless to change it, sometimes not even aware the cycle was repeating until my pens and paper had long collected dust.  

No matter how many times my friends would tell me I needed to write. No matter how many writing courses I took.  No matter how many articles on writing and being a better writer I read.  Nothing pierced the thick walls of doubt and discouragement.  Nothing convinced me that I had a gift, much less one worth sharing.

Until Harvester Island.

At the Wilderness Writing Workshop, I was surrounded by loving, accepting, talented writers.  Writers who read my work, showed me where it needed improvement, and declared it a gift worth sharing.  A gift worth honing. 

A gift worth the hard work and commitment.

In the ensuing weeks after my return home, I rode a high, cocooned in a writerly honeymoon stage.  The writing was copious, effortless, easy.  Not hard work at all.  But as time wore on, and outside influences ~ negative influences ~ pressed in, I forgot.  Forgot that love ~ of any kind ~ demands commitment, patience, and work.

It wasn’t long before the ink dried up, the words disappeared, and my heart shut down.

I tried to ignore it, that ache.  Filled my time with social media and throwaway books.  Sometimes, this would backfire.  I would read something and think, That position is outrageous!  I need to write an article about that.  Or a thought would come to me, I’d talk it out in my head and think,  When I get to my desk, I need to write this down.

But it never happened.  I never wrote those articles or jotted down my thoughts and reflections.  Because who was I kidding?  No one wants to hear what I have to say.  And even if they did, nothing I write comes out perfect.  My first drafts are terrible ~ rambling, emotional, boring.

Despite this inner angsty whirlpool, I managed to write pieces here and there.  Usually completed a couple of days before my monthly writers’ group at Water Street Studio.  Except I went to the last meeting empty handed.  I had a piece at home, a first draft so bad even I was bored and disgusted with it.  So I didn’t share it.  And that night, warmth and love broke through the negativity.  Again.

But that’s what this group is for!  To share our works in progress, to bounce ideas off each other, and work on our writing, no matter how crappy our first drafts. You're in a safe place.

I almost cried with gratitude and relief.  It was as if I needed permission to write crap.  Permission to work hard, to write and rewrite and rewrite again.  To have first and second and third drafts that even a gossip rag wouldn’t print.  Because that’s what a writer does: she sits in a chair even when she doesn’t want to and wrestles with words and ideas.

You could even say, she mines for them.

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

Are you committed to your art?

Writer or Me Monster: Why the About Page is Important to Readers

Everything tells me that I am about to make a wrong decision, but making mistakes is just part of life. What does the world want of me? Does it want me to take no risks, to go back to where I came from because I didn't have the courage to say "yes" to life?

~ Paulo Coelho

November 1 marked the beginning of that madcap dash into the world of words and word counts: National Novel Writing Month – affectionately known as NaNo.  I didn’t sign up this year, but throughout the month of November, I’ll be highlighting authors, their books, and the writing process.

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ay be a day (or more) and a dollar short, but I’ve joined Jeff Goins’ Intentional Blogging Challenge.

Being the daydreaming writer that I am *cough* procrastinating *cough*, I find that I need to sign up for at least two to four writing challenges a year.  Deadlines combined with being part of a group of writers forces me to write a substantial word count every day.

At least every day of the challenge.

A couple of weeks ago I got together with a fellow writer and blogger to talk a bit about the challenge and do some free-writing on the dreaded Day One topic (cue Darth Vader theme):

Writing the About Me Page.

Relationship not Narcissism

Contrary to most people’s first impressions (usually garnered at a social event where I’m being, well, social!), I am a very private person.  I guard my boundaries like Cerebus guards Hades’ lair.

Minus the hellacious breath and acid drool.

Cerebus and Hades, 6th century

Yes, I have a blog.  Yes, I write about some personal things sometimes.  I also write under a nom de plume.  This is mainly to protect my Styx-like privacy.  

It is also so some well-meaning (or smug and purposefully hateful) friend of the family (aka pot-stirrer) happens upon my blog and informs my mother, “I didn’t know you were certifiably nuts!  This explains so much!”

Ahh, the perils of memoirists. 

In addition, some people might associate my ability to talk the leg off a brass chamber pot (I’m so getting one of those after Kodiak), to a narcissistic addiction to talking about myself.  

When they spend one on one time with me, they find that I actually don’t like to talk about myself.  This goes hand in hand with my Cerebus-guarded Styx-like privacy.  And it becomes painfully obvious when you see my About page ~ it's sad.

Like, puppy-hit-by-a car sad.

A great About Me Page should invite you in, give you a better idea of who I am both as a writer and as a person ~ because who wants to read the scribblings of a faceless person with the personality of a blank canvas stuck in your grandparents attic? 

Okay, maybe that's going too far, but you get the picture.  

What and Why I Write

Another thing the About Me page should do, is tell you about the blog itself, what I write about, and why.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been pounding the keys, ripping out my heart, and sharing it with y’all for almost ten years (La Belle’s ninth birthday was on Halloween in fact) and throughout this wild , crazy, colourful, and literary ride, I’ve been asked: “So what is your blog about?”  My usual response?

Cue zombie impression.  Uh – art?  Um - food?  I really like people and…I dunno.  I just write. 

So I looked though old posts, made a list, and realized that if I flesh out those answers, I get that I like to talk and write about is art and hospitality and writing and mental health.

Wait just a minute….that sounds like it might be what this blog is actually about!

Aha!  So those four things I mentioned above?  Those are what bloggers call categories and they serve as the bones of the blog.  The blog posts make up the skin and blood and organs and brain.   The heart is made up of you, my readers.  What about the soul?

Most writers ~ especially fiction writers ~ will tell you that once they begin writing, the book takes on a life of its own.  Sometimes the characters won’t grow or act like you want them to ~ they become almost sentient.

A blog is no different.  Mine most definitely has a soul, a personality.  And it just so happens to mirror mine. As E(I)NFPs place a high priority and value on relationships, so does my blog.  Whether the topic has to do with art, writing, hospitality, or mental health, the theme of relationships is interwoven throughout.  Sometimes it’s more subtle than others, but it’s always there.

And in that case, I’m not quite sure where this particular relationship is going.  But I know where I’d like it to head.  But more about that in my About Page.

Which you can read as soon as I write it.

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

Happiness and the Art of Storytelling: An Interview with Daniel McInerny

It's like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story.

~ Patrick Rothfuss

Tomorrow marks the beginning of that madcap dash into the world of words and word counts: National Novel Writing Month – affectionately known as NaNo.  I didn’t sign up this year, but throughout the month of November, I’ll be highlighting authors, their books, and the writing process.

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e all live in a story.

Some of us just happen to narrate our own stories.  We are sometimes called crazy.  Sometimes we are. 

We are writers.

And it is both our gift and our curse to live in the midst of a jungle of words – poetry intermingled with prose.  Some of our stories have tragic ends.  A few have happily ever afters.

But all some have moments of happiness and joy.  Moments, that if they are gathered up, would shine a light on the darkest dramas and mysteries.

Throughout the month of NaNo November, I will highlight different authors and their books.  Because you can’t become a good writer, if you aren’t a good reader.

Today marks the launch of a new blog series, The Happiness Plot by novelist, screenwriter, children's author, playwright,  Daniel McInerny.  This blog series focuses on storytelling and the quest for happiness and will be available as an ebook by the end of the month.

Join us in the La Belle library, where we’ve just sat down with a pot of Earl Grey.

Image: Google Images

Why do you write?

I write because I love to contemplate the human predicament through the means of beautiful language.

Name two mentors who influenced your writing.

My father, Ralph McInerny, and all my high school English teachers, who as a group were exceptionally gifted at teaching the fundamentals of writing. 

Name five writers you recommend (any genre).

Evelyn Waugh

P.G. Wodehouse

Flannery O’Connor

Muriel Spark

Walker Percy

What is the toughest challenge you face as a writer?

I struggle to be a more “seat-of-your-pants” writer, making up the story as I go along, line by line. This is an important struggle for me because my entrenched analytical habits (I hold a PhD in philosophy and taught in academia for many years), while immensely valuable, can also be a hindrance to creative work. Thus I am trying to learn not to plot and analyze too much ahead of the moment of actual composition.

Describe your writing process. 

I tend to get an idea for a story long before, sometimes years before, I actually begin writing a first draft. The thing often begins as a series of scraps and influences and vague possibilities that I collect in a notebook. It takes me a long time, and more than one false start, before I have a firm sense of what I’m doing, which is typically toward the end or even after the first draft.

What does your writing space look like?

Dreary.  Home office in the basement. No windows. Rickety desk with a broken leg. Horribly uncomfortable chair. Insufficient shelf space.

I can’t think of a more perfect place to write.

Your new series on storytelling, The Happiness Plot, begins today.  What inspired you to write this?  And what can writers (and readers) learn from it?

I really love James Wood’s little book, How Fiction Works, with its pithy 200-word sections.

It occurred to me that these sections were just about the length of a blog post and that Wood’s book provided a good model for a series of posts on storytelling structure. My contribution to all the “how-to” material in this area concerns the link between story structure and our human quest for happiness. I believe understanding this link allows us to tell more emotionally moving, intellectually satisfying, beautiful stories.

Daniel McInerny

The series is perfectly timed for those participating in National Novel Writing Month in November.  As soon as the series is done at the end of November, I’m going to collect the posts into an ebook, with the addition of some bonus material I’m sending out to the folks on my email list. I further plan on doing further blog series on other aspects of writing and the writing life. 

All this material is great for lovers of fiction as well.

Give 3 brief words of advice for writers.

Sit. Now. Begin

Anything new in the works?

Currently I’m writing a novel for adults as well as returning my play, The Actor, about the young Saint John Paul II’s subversive theatrical activities during the Nazi occupation of Poland, back into its original form as a musical. A producer has shown some interest in the work and right now I’m doing a revision based upon his and another friend’s notes.

Thanks for stopping by, Daniel!

To follow the storytelling adventure and to subscribe to Daniel’s email list to receive cool bonus content and a free storytelling consultation, go to  The Happiness Plot.

For more info on the Kingdom of Patria series for children, go to www.kingdomofpatria.com.

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

La Belle: New Address, Same Old House

It ain't what they call you, it's what you answer to.

~ W.C. Fields

The Harvester Island Wilderness Workshop was incredible.  I went to write with 11 strangers, and I left with 15 new friends.  In the coming weeks, I’ll be posting my photos and thoughts on the workshop and on the beauties of Kodiak, Alaska.

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nd this blog now answers to new, easier to remember and hopefully easier to spell, url: www.mikaeladeigh.com.

When I began this blog back in 2005 (wow, we turn 10 next tenyear!), I still lived in a world of lofty romantic ideals and an attachment to Latin.  

Today, those romantic notions are sadly tattered and blowing the breeze of cynicism and disillusion. 

The old url is the Latin translation for Canticle 2:16 (or Song of Solomon):

I am my Beloved’s and my Beloved is mine.

See?  Very romantic. 

The sentiment, at least, has proven true on this count: I belong to the art of writing even more than I did in years past.  The style has changed (as it should as I read and wrote more) but the love of ink and paper and words and ideas and the worlds and emotions they create and inspire ~ that has never changed.

So, much like the house you like that sits in the neighborhood you’ve outgrown, La Belle has kept the same structure, just moved to an address that’s easier to travel to.

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

How to Have a Healing Father's Day: Reblog from Leslie Leyland Fields

When my father would yell at me, I told myself someday I'd use it in a book.

~ Paula Danziger

June is the FLX/WordCount Blogathon!  Join us for 30 Days of blogging madness!

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ove.

We learn it first from our parents.

And more often than not, it’s an imperfect lesson.  Because our parents are human.

Today is a tough day for some people.  Either because they had a rough childhood, or because their father has died without there being a resolution to the past.

 

Image credit: whatwillmatter.com

Today, I’d like to direct you to read a post by author Leslie Leyland Fields, author, Alaskan fisherwoman, and leader of the Wilderness Writers Workshop I’ll be attending this fall!  In her post on What Are Fathers For, she explores this often painful relationship and offers some advice on how to cope and live your life in the present.

Read and be moved.  And let’s talk some more on Monday.

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

What will you do to celebrate Father’s Day today?

Messengers of Healing: Drowning Out Negativity

Words are thought descriptors. They project thoughts from anonymity. They transfer thoughts into messages. Messages move the world.
~ William E. Jefferson

June is the FLX/WordCount Blogathon!  Join us for 30 Days of blogging madness!

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essages bombard us every day.

Buy this now – so you’re just like everyone else!  Even though you’re already in debt and the economy has stalled.

Try this pill – it cures everything!  Even though it may cause death.

Eat this burger– it’ll make you feel better!  Even though it doesn’t look anything like that in real life.

Don’t eat that butter – it’ll make you fat! Even though everyone agrees poor body image is too prevalent and eating disorders are on the rise.

And those are just the messages we hear from the outside.  The ones we tell ourselves are often even more damaging:

I’ll never get that promotion.
Why am I always so stupid?
I can never do anything right!
I am unlovable / undesirable /untouchable / unworthy.

What makes this more damaging is that while we repeat them over and over to ourselves, we sometime end up repeating them to others.

Changing the Messages We Hear
You can’t give what you don’t have.  So if we’re filled with self-loathing or feel unworthy of love, we aren’t able to love as freely or as warmly as someone who is confident in their worth.  And so the cycle of negative messages continues.

It’s been said that we can never fully erase the hateful messages we tell ourselves, and it certainly seems that way in my experience.  No matter what positive things I tell myself or that my therapist or close friends tell me, the negative ones come back ~ and hit the positive ones over the head with a big, heavy stick.

Image credit: alyssaandbrianna.blogspot.com

And yet, the only reason the ugly ones stay is because they’ve been repeated, over and over and over.  So in order to get rid of them, we have to repeat the positive ones over and over and over.   

Until they play over top the negative messages.

This process isn’t easy and it takes time.  Most of us have heard these negative messages for years, some of us since childhood.  

You can’t overcome 30, 40, or even 60 years of emotional brainwashing in just a few months or even a couple of years.

The upside to healing?  You then become a messenger of peace and positivity and stop the cycle of negativity.

As for taking that death pill with that fatty burger in that new car you can’t afford – turn off the idiot box and get outside, read a book, or spend some time with friends and family.  You can always stream a show later - minus the negative commercials.

Your awesome body and your bank account will thank you.

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

What messages hold you back?  What are you doing to drown them out?

Five Minute Friday is an ever-growing group of bloggers who write for five minutes flat each Friday on the same prompt that Lisa Jo Baker posts each Thursday evening. It’s five minutes to see what comes out: not a perfect post, not a profound post, just five minutes of focused writing. Those without a blog can post their five minute piece as a comment on Lisa Jo Baker’s blog. For more details, visit Five Minute Friday.